! LIBRARY 
JNIVWSITY  Of      I 
CALIFORNIA/ 


Largf^iOaprr  Glutton 


THE   WRITINGS   OF 

THOMAS   WENTWORTH    HIGGINSON 
VOLUME   I 


Author's  Autograph  Copy 
No.  '•'// 


-J/W^aj     (A/ e^Uj-cr+lKi 


t?J 


Cheerful  Yesterdays 


BY 


Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson 


CAMBRIDGE 

at  Ct)e  fctocrstof 

M  D  C  C  C  C 


COPYRIGHT,  1898,  BY  THOMAS  WENTWORTH  HIGGINSON 
ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED 


TWO    HUNDRED   COPIES   PRINTED 
NUMBER 


PS 


v,  I 
MAIW 


TO  MY  WIFE 
MARY  THACHER   HIGGINSON 

WHOSE   SUNNY    INFLUENCE   ADDS   APPROPRIATENESS   TO   THB 

TITLE,   ADOPTED   AT    HER   SUGGESTION,   OF   THIS    BOOK 

OF    REMINISCENCES 

CAMBRIDGE,  MASS.,  Ftbruary  u,  1898 


348 


NOTE 

The  chapters  of  this  book  have  appeared  at 
short  intervals  in  the  "  Atlantic  Monthly "  and 
are  here  reprinted  with  careful  revision  and  with 
a  few  additions.  Some  of  the  latter  are  taken 
from  a  sketch  of  the  author's  mother,  published 
originally  in  the  "Ladies'  Home  Journal." 
These  are  here  included  by  permission  of  the 
proprietors  of  that  periodical. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I.    A  CAMBRIDGE   BOYHOOD I 

II.    A  CHILD  OF  THE  COLLEGE 38 

III.    THE   PERIOD    OF   THE    NEWNESS         ....      69 
XV.    THE   REARING  OF  A   REFORMER  IOO 

V.    THE  FUGITIVE   SLAVE   EPOCH 132 

VI.    THE   BIRTH   OF  A  LITERATURE     ....        167 

VII.    KANSAS  AND  JOHN    BROWN 196 

VIII.    CIVIL  WAR 235 

IX.    LITERARY   LONDON   TWENTY   YEARS   AGO         .  .27! 

X.    LITERARY   PARIS  TWENTY  YEARS   AGO  .  .        298 

XI.    ON   THE  OUTSKIRTS   OF   PUBLIC   LIFE       .  .  .   326 

EPILOGUE 3^2 

INDEX 3^5 


CHEERFUL    YESTERDAYS 


A  CAMBRIDGE  BOYHOOD 

IN  introducing  the  imaginary  Chronicles  of 
P.  P.,  Clerk  of  this  Parish,  the  poet  Pope  re 
marks  that  any  such  book  might  well  be  in 
scribed,  "  On  the  Importance  of  a  Man  to 
Himself."  Yet  perhaps  the  first  obstacle  to  be 
encountered  by  any  autobiographer  is  the  sud 
den  sense  of  his  own  extreme  unimportance. 
Does  each  ant  in  an  ant-hill  yearn  to  bequeath 
to  the  universe  his  personal  reminiscences  ? 
When,  at  the  dead  of  night,  I  hear  my  neigh 
bors  at  the  Harvard  Observatory  roll  away 
their  lofty  shutters,  in  preparation  for  their 
accustomed  tryst  with  the  stars,  it  seems  as 
if  one  might  well  be  content  to  keep  silence 
in  the  presence  of  the  Pleiades.  Yet,  after  all, 
the  telescope  need  only  be  reversed  to  make 
the  universe  appear  little,  and  the  observer 
large  ;  so  that  we  may  as  well  begin  at  the  one 
end  as  at  the  other. 


2  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

"  Man  is  one  world,  and  hath 
Another  to  attend  him." 

Probably,  if  the  truth  were  known,  nothing  in 
the  universe  is  really  insignificant,  not  even 
ourselves. 

When  I  think  of  the  vast  changes  which 
every  man  of  my  time  has  seen,  of  the  men 
and  women  whom  I  have  known,  —  those  who 
created  American  literature  and  who  freed 
millions  of  slaves,  —  men  and  women  whom, 
as  the  worldly-wise  Lord  Houghton  once  wrote 
me,  "  Europe  has  learned  to  honor,  and  would 
do  well  to  imitate,"  then  I  feel  that,  whether 
I  will  or  no,  something  worth  chronicling  may 
be  included  in  the  proposed  chapters.  For  the 
rest,  the  autobiographer  has  the  least  reason 
of  all  writers  to  concern  himself  about  the 
portrayal  of  his  own  personality.  He  is  sure 
to  reveal  it,  particularly  if  he  tries  to  hide 
it.  Confucius  asked,  "  How  can  a  man  be 
concealed  ?  "  Of  all  methods,  certainly  not  by 
writing  his  reminiscences.  He  can  escape  un 
observed,  or  else  mislead  observers,  only  by 
holding  his  tongue ;  let  him  open  his  lips,  and 
we  have  him  as  he  is. 

All  the  scenes  and  atmosphere  of  one's 
native  village  —  if  one  is  fortunate  enough  to 
have  been  born  in  such  a  locality  —  lie  around 
the  memory  like  the  horizon  line,  unreachable, 


A   CAMBRIDGE   BOYHOOD  3 

impassable.  Even  a  so-called  cosmopolitan  man 
has  never  seemed  to  me  a  very  happy  being, 
and  a  cosmopolitan  child  is  above  all  things  to 
be  pitied.  To  be  identified  in  early  memories 
with  some  limited  and  therefore  characteristic 
region,  —  that  is  happiness.  No  child  is  old 
enough  to  be  a  citizen  of  the  world.  What 
denationalized  Americans  hasten  to  stamp  as 
provincial  is  for  children,  at  least,  a  saving 
grace.  You  do  not  call  a  nest  provincial.  All 
this  is  particularly  true  of  those  marked  out  by 
temperament  for  a  literary  career.  The  pre 
destined  painter  or  musician  needs  an  early 
contact  with  the  treasures  and  traditions  of  an 
older  world,  but  literature  needs  for  its  material 
only  men,  nature,  and  books  ;  and  of  these,  the 
first  two  are  everywhere,  and  the  last  are  easily 
transportable,  since  you  can  pile  the  few  su 
preme  authors  of  the  world  in  a  little  corner  of 
the  smallest  log  cabin.  The  Cambridge  of  my 
boyhood  —  two  or  three  thousand  people  — 
afforded  me,  it  now  seems,  all  that  human  heart 
could  ask  for  its  elementary  training.  Those 
who  doubt  it  might,  perchance,  have  been  the 
gainers  if  they  had  shared  it.  "He  despises 
me,"  said  Ben  Jonson,  "because  I  live  in  an 
alley.  Tell  him  his  soul  lives  in  an  alley." 

I  was  born  in  Cambridge,  Massachusetts,  on 
December  22,  1823,  in  a  house   built  by  my 


4  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

father  at  the  head  of  what  was  then  called 
Professors'  Row,  and  is  now  Kirkland  Street, 
—  the  street  down  which  the  provincial  troops 
marched  to  the  battle  of  Bunker  Hill,  after  halt 
ing  for  prayer  at  the  "  gambrel-roofed  house  " 
where  Dr.  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  was  born. 
My  father's  house  —  now  occupied  by  Mrs. 
F.  L.  Batchelder — was  begun  in  i8i§,  when 
the  land  was  bought  from  Harvard  College, 
whose  official  he  had  just  become.  Already 
the  Scientific  School  and  the  Hemenway  Gym 
nasium  crowd  upon  it,  and  the  university  will 
doubtless,  one  of  these  days,  engulf  it  once 
more.  My  father  came  of  a  line  of  Puritan 
clergymen,  officials,  militia  officers,  and  latterly 
East  India  merchants,  all  dating  back  to  the 
Rev.  Francis  Higginson,  who  landed  at  Salem 
in  1629,  in  charge  of  the  first  large  party  for 
the  Massachusetts  Bay  Colony,  and  who  made 
that  historic  farewell  recorded  by  Cotton  Ma 
ther,  as  his  native  shores  faded  away :  "  We 
will  not  say,  as  the  Separatists  said,  Farewell, 
Rome !  Farewell,  Babylon !  But  we  will  say, 
Farewell,  dear  England  !  Farewell,  the  Chris 
tian  church  in  England,  and  all  the  Christian 
friends  there !  " 

My  father  had  been,  like  his  father  before 
him,  —  also  named  Stephen  Higginson,  and  a 
member  of  the  Continental  Congress  in  1783, 


A   CAMBRIDGE   BOYHOOD  5 

- —  among  the  leading  merchants  of  Boston, 
until  Jefferson's  embargo  brought  a  great 
change  in  his  fortunes.  He  had  been  unsur 
passed  in  those  generous  philanthropies  which 
have  given  Boston  merchants  a  permanent  repu 
tation  ;  he  was,  indeed,  frequently  mentioned 
—  as  his  cousin,  John  Lowell,  wrote  of  him  — 
as  the  Howard  or  the  Man  of  Ross  of  his 
day.  I  still  possess  a  fine  oil  painting  of  this 
last  hero  of  Pope's  lay,  a  picture  sent  anony 
mously  to  the  house,  during  my  father's  life, 
with  the  inscription  that  it  was  for  a  man  who 
"so  eminently  Copys  the  Fair  Original." 
Through  inquiries  very  lately  made  at  Ross  in 
England,  I  found  with  surprise  that  no  picture 
of  the  original  "Man  of  Ross"  remained  in 
the  village  ;  and  I  was  led  to  suspect  that  this 
might  be  one  of  the  two  portraits  which  were 
once  there,  but  have  disappeared.  Mine  is 
certainly  not  that  engraved  in  the  "  European 
Magazine"  for  1786,  but  a  far  more  attractive 
representation.  My  father  retained  warm 
friends  in  his  adversity,  who  bought  for  him 
the  land  where  the  Cambridge  house  stood, 
and  secured  for  him  the  position  of  steward  of 
the  college,  the  post  now  rechristened  "  bur 
sar,"  and  one  in  which  he  did,  as  Dr.  A.  P. 
Peabody  tells  us,  most  of  the  duties  of  trea 
surer.  In  that  capacity  he  planted,  as  I  have 


6  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

always  been  told,  a  large  part  of  the  trees  In 
the  college  yard,  —  nobody  in  Cambridge  ever 
says  "  campus,"  —  and  had  also  the  wisdom  to 
hang  a  lamp  over  each  entrance  to  the  yard, 
although  these  lamps  were  soon  extinguished 
by  the  economical  college.  He  was  ardently 
interested  in  the  early  Unitarian  division,  then 
pending,  in  the  Congregational  body;  organ 
ized  the  Harvard  Divinity  School,  —  not  then, 
as  now,  undenominational ;  and  seems  to  have 
been  for  some  years  a  sort  of  lay  bishop  among 
the  Unitarian  parishes,  distributing  young  min 
isters  to  vacant  churches  without  fear  or  favor. 
He  liked  to  read  theology,  but  was  in  no 
respect  a  scholar;  indeed,  Dr.  Peabody  says 
that,  on  receiving  for  the  institution  its  first 
supply  of  Hebrew  Bibles,  my  father  went  to 
the  president,  Dr.  Kirkland,  with  some  indig 
nation,  saying  that  the  books  must  all  be  re 
turned,  since  the  careless  printer  had  put  all 
the  title-pages  at  the  wrong  end.  In  his  adver 
sity  as  in  his  wealth,  he  was  a  man  of  bound 
less  and  somewhat  impetuous  kindness,  and 
espoused  with  such  ardor  the  cause  of  Miss 
Hannah  Adams,  the  historian,  against  her  rival 
in  that  profession,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Morse,  that  he 
was  betrayed  into  a  share  in  one  or  two  vehe 
ment  pamphlets,  and  very  nearly  into  a  law 
suit. 


A   CAMBRIDGE   BOYHOOD  7 

He  died  when  I  was  nine  years  old,  and  my 
main  training  came  consequently  from  my  mo 
ther  and  my  aunt  Miss  Anne  G.  Storrow,  then 
known  to  all  the  Cambridge  world  as  "  Aunt 
Nancy,"  who  was  to  my  mother  like  a  second 
self  in  the  rearing  of  her  children.  My  mo 
ther's  early  life  was  like  a  chapter  in  a  romance. 
Captain  Thomas  Storrow,  an  English  officer, 
being  detained  a  prisoner  at  Portsmouth,  N.  H., 
early  in  the  Revolution,  fell  in  love  with  a 
maiden,  who  adventurously  married  him  at  the 
age  of  seventeen,  in  1777,  and  sailed  with  him 
to  England.  These  were  my  mother's  parents. 
The  marriage  had  all  the  requisite  elements  of 
romance  —  youth,  inexperience,  two  warring 
nations,  and  two  deeply  dissatisfied  families. 
The  bride,  Anne  Appleton,  represented  two  of 
the  best  families  in  the  then  somewhat  aristo 
cratic  province  of  New  Hampshire,  the  Apple- 
tons  and  the  Wentworths  ;  the  latter,  in  par 
ticular,  holding  their  heads  so  high  that  they 
were  declared  by  a  wicked  Portsmouth  wit  to 
speak  habitually  of  Queen  Elizabeth  as  "  Cousin 
Betsy  Tudor."  This  was  the  nest  in  which  my 
grandmother  had  been  reared.  She  had  lived 
from  childhood  in  the  house  of  her  grandfather, 
Judge  Wentworth  ;  her  great-grandfather  was 
the  first  of  the  three  royal  governors  of  that 
name,  and  the  two  others  were  her  near  kins- 


8  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

men.  She  might,  indeed,  have  sat  for  the 
heroine  of  Whittier's  ballad,  "Amy  Went- 
worth ;  "  but  it  was  a  soldier,  not  a  sailor,  whom 
she  married  ;  and  when  she  went  to  England  — 
fortunately  under  the  proper  escort  of  a  kins 
woman  —  she  was  apparently  received,  both  by 
her  husband's  relatives  and  her  own,  with  all 
the  warmth  that  might  have  been  expected  — 
that  is,  with  none  at  all.  Yet  she  had  sweet 
and  winning  qualities  which  finally  triumphed 
over  all  obstacles ;  and  her  married  life,  though 
full  of  vicissitudes,  was,  on  the  whole,  happy. 
They  dwelt  in  England,  in  Jamaica,  in  St. 
Andrews,  in  Campobello,  then  in  Jamaica  again, 
Captain  Storrow  having  in  the  meantime  re 
signed  his  commission,  and  having  died  at  sea 
on  his  passage  to  Boston,  in  1795.  My  mother, 
Louisa  Storrow,  had  been  born,  meanwhile,  at 
St.  Andrews,  in  1786. 

Among  my  mother's  most  vivid  childish  re 
collections  was  that  of  being  led,  a  weeping 
child  of  nine,  at  the  stately  funeral  of  her  father, 
who  was  buried  in  Boston  with  military  and 
Masonic  honors.  After  his  death  his  young 
widow  opened  a  private  school  in  Hingham, 
Massachusetts,  and  through  the  influence  of 
kind  friends  in  Boston,  had  boarding  pupils 
from  that  city,  only  twenty  miles  away,  thus 
laying  for  my  mother  the  foundation  of  some 


A   CAMBRIDGE   BOYHOOD  9 

life-long  friendships.  This  school  has  been 
praised  by  Mr.  Barnard,  the  historian  of  early 
American  education,  as  one  of  the  best  of  the 
dawning  experiments  toward  the  education  of 
girls.  Mrs.  Storrow,  however,  died  within  a 
year  and  a  half,  and  her  little  family  were  left 
orphans  among  strangers  or  very  recent  friends. 
Their  chief  benefactor  was  my  father,  into 
whose  family  my  mother  was  adopted,  assist 
ing  in  the  care  of  his  invalid  wife  and  two  little 
girls.  Nothing  could  at  the  time  have  been 
less  foreseen  than  the  ultimate  outcome  of  this 
arrangement.  My  mother  was  betrothed  at 
fifteen  or  sixteen  to  a  young  man  —  Edward 
Cabot  —  who  was  lost  at  sea ;  a  year  or  two 
later  her  benefactress,  my  father's  first  wife, 
died,  and  my  mother  remained  in  the  house 
hold  as  an  adopted  daughter,  ultimately  becom 
ing,  at  the  early  age  of  nineteen,  my  father's 
second  wife. 

My  father  was  sixteen  years  older  than  my 
mother,  and  into  all  his  various  interests  she 
was  at  once  thrown  as  the  young  Lady  Bounti 
ful  of  the  household.  She  also  had  the  care  of 
two  stepchildren,  who  all  their  lives  thought  of 
her  as  their  mother.  My  father  lived  in  the 
then  fashionable  region  of  Mt.  Vernon  Street, 
in  all  the  habits  of  affluence ;  his  hospitality 
was  inconveniently  unbounded,  and  the  young 


io  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

wife  found  herself  presiding  at  large  dinner 
parties  and  at  the  sumptuous  evening  enter 
tainments,  then  more  in  vogue  than  now.  It 
was  the  recorded  verdict  of  the  Hon.  George 
Cabot,  the  social  monarch  of  that  day  in  Bos 
ton,  that  "no  one  received  company  better 
than  Mrs.  Higginson,"  and  those  who  knew 
the  unfailing  grace  and  sweetness  of  her  later 
manner  can  well  believe  it.  She  had  at  this 
time  in  their  freshness  certain  points  of  physi 
cal  beauty  which  she  retained  unusually  unim 
paired  until  her  latest  years  —  a  noble  forehead, 
clear  blue-gray  eyes,  a  rose-tinted  complexion, 
soft  brown  hair,  a  pliant  figure,  with  slender 
hands  and  feet. 

She  had,  in  all,  ten  children  of  her  own,  of 
whom  I  was  the  youngest.  But  before  my 
birth  the  whole  scene  had  suddenly  changed. 
My  father's  whole  fortune  went  when  Jeffer 
son's  embargo  came;  his  numerous  vessels  were 
captured  or  valueless.  He  retired  into  the 
country,  living  on  a  beautiful  sheep-farm  in 
Bolton,  Massachusetts,  placed  at  his  disposal 
by  a  more  fortunate  friend,  Mr.  S.  V.  S.  Wilder. 
There  lies  before  me  my  mother's  diary  at  this 
farm,  which  begins  thus  :  "  On  Saturday,  the 
8th  April,  1815,  we  left  our  home,  endeared  to 
us  by  a  long  and  happy  residence  and  by  the 
society  of  many  dear  and  kind  friends,  to  make 


A   CAMBRIDGE   BOYHOOD  11 

trial  of  new  scenes,  new  cares,  and  new  duties ; 
but  though  by  this  change  we  make  some  sac 
rifices  and  have  some  painful  regrets,  we  are 
still  experiencing  the  same  goodness  and  mercy 
which  have  hitherto  crowned  our  lives  with 
happiness."  "I  always  awake,"  she  adds, 
"  calm  and  serene.  My  children  occupy  my 
mind  and  my  heart,  and  fill  it  with  affection  and 
gratitude.  They  are  healthy,  innocent,  and 
happy,  and  I  enjoy  every  moment  of  their 
lives.  Books  are  my  recreation,  and,  next  to 
my  children,  my  greatest  source  of  pleasure. 
I  read  Stewart's  '  Philosophical  Essays '  and 
the  '  Faerie  Queene '  of  Spenser,  usually  in 
the  evening,  which  is  charmingly  undisturbed. 
This  exemption  from  visitors  is  delightful  to 
me  ;  it  gives  me  time  to  think  and  to  read,  and 
I  only  hope  that  I  shall  improve  all  my  advan 
tages."  She  was  at  this  time  in  her  thirtieth 
year,  and  in  this  sweet  spirit  laid  down  the  ut 
most  that  the  little  New  England  capital  could 
then  afford  of  luxury  and  fashion. 

Another  change  came  soon,  when  she  and 
her  flock  were  transferred,  rather  against  her 
will,  to  Cambridge,  and  placed  in  an  official 
position.  My  father's  connection  with  the  col 
lege,  and  the  popular  qualities  of  my  mother 
and  aunt,  brought  many  guests  to  our  house, 
including  the  most  cultivated  men  in  Boston  as 


12  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

well  as  Cambridge.  My  earliest  documentary 
evidence  of  existence  on  this  planet  is  a  note  to 
my  father,  in  Edward  Everett's  exquisite  hand 
writing,  inquiring  after  the  health  of  the  "babe," 
and  saying  that  Mrs.  Everett  was  putting  up 
some  tamarinds  to  accompany  the  note.  The 
precise  object  of  the  tamarinds  I  have  never 
clearly  understood,  but  it  is  pleasant  to  think 
that  I  was,  at  the  age  of  seven  months,  assisted 
toward  maturity  by  this  benefaction  from  a 
man  so  eminent.  Professor  Andrews  Norton 
and  George  Ticknor  habitually  gave  their  own 
writings  ;  and  I  remember  Dr.  J.  G.  Palfrey's 
bringing  to  the  house  a  new  book,  Hawthorne's 
"Twice-Told  Tales,"  and  reading  aloud  "A  Rill 
from  the  Town  Pump."  Once,  and  once  only, 
Washington  Irving  came  there,  while  visiting 
a  nephew  who  had  married  my  cousin.  Mar 
garet  Fuller,  a  plain,  precocious,  overgrown  girl, 
but  already  credited  with  unusual  talents,  used 
to  visit  my  elder  sister,  and  would  sometimes 
sit  on  a  footstool  at  my  mother's  feet,  gazing 
up  at  her  in  admiration.  A  younger  sister  of 
Professor  Longfellow  was  a  frequent  guest,  and 
the  young  poet  himself  came,  in  the  dawning 
of  his  yet  undeveloped  fame.  My  nurse  was 
a  certain  Rowena  Pratt,  wife  of  Dexter  Pratt, 
the  "  Village  Blacksmith  "  of  Longfellow  ;  and 
it  is  my  impression  that  she  was  married  from 


A   CAMBRIDGE   BOYHOOD  13 

our  house.  It  is  amusing  to  remember  that 
Professor  Longfellow  once  asked  me,  many 
years  after,  what  his  hero's  name  was.  My 
special  playmate,  Charles  Parsons,  was  a 
nephew  of  Dr.  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  who 
was  in  those  years  studying  in  Europe ;  and 
in  the  elder  Dr.  Holmes' s  house  Charles  Par 
sons  and  I  often  "  tumbled  about  in  a  library," 
—  indeed,  in  the  very  same  library  where  the 
Autocrat  had  himself  performed  the  process  he 
recommended.  Under  these  circumstances  it 
seems  very  natural  that  a  child  thus  moulded 
should  have  drifted  into  a  literary  career. 

The  period  here  described  was  one  when 
children  were  taught  to  read  very  early,  and 
this  in  all  parts  of  our  country.  The  celebrated 
General  Charles  Cotesworth  Pinckney,  in  South 
Carolina,  was  reported  by  his  mother  in  1745 
as  "  beginning  to  spell  before  he  is  two  years 
old ; "  but  he  himself  said,  later,  of  this  preco 
cious  teaching  that  it  was  "sad  stuff,"  and 
that  "  by  haste  to  make  him  a  clever  fellow  he 
had  very  nearly  become  a  stupid  one."  My 
mother  made  a  memorandum  in  regard  to  my 
elder  sister,  "  She  knows  all  her  letters  at 
three,"  and  of  me  that  at  four  I  had  already 
"read  a  good  many  books."  I  still  preserve 
a  penciled  note  from  a  little  playmate,  the 
daughter  of  a  professor,  saying,  "I  am  glad 


I4  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

you  are  six  years  old.  I  shall  be  four  in 
March."  My  own  daughter  could  not  have 
written  that  note  when  she  was  seven,  and  yet 
she  learned  to  read  and  write  at  that  age  almost 
without  conscious  effort.  I  cannot  see  that  my 
contemporaries  either  gained  or  lost  anything 
by  this  precocious  instruction  ;  and  perhaps,  in 
the  total  development  of  a  child's  mind,  the 
actual  reading  of  books  plays  a  much  smaller 
part  than  we  imagine.  Probably  the  thing  of 
most  importance,  even  with  books,  as  an  expe 
rienced  Boston  teacher  once  said,  is  to  have 
been  "  exposed  to  them,"  to  have  unconsciously 
received  their  flavor,  as  a  pan  of  milk  takes  the 
flavor  of  surrounding  viands.  To  have  lain  on 
the  hearth-rug  and  heard  one's  mother  read 
aloud  is  a  liberal  education.  When  I  remem 
ber  that  my  mother  actually  read  to  us  in  the 
evenings  every  one  of  the  Waverley  Novels, 
even  down  to  "Castle  Dangerous,"  I  cannot 
but  regard  with  pity  the  children  of  to-day  who 
have  no  such  privilege. 

My  father,  in  his  days  of  affluence,  had 
bought  a  great  many  books  in  London,  and 
had  them  bound  under  his  own  eye  in  the  solid 
fashion  of  that  day.  Many  of  them  were  sold 
in  his  adversity,  yet  nearly  a  thousand  volumes 
remained,  chiefly  of  English  literature  and  his 
tory  of  the  eighteenth  century  ;  and  most  of 


A   CAMBRIDGE   BOYHOOD  15 

these  I  read.  There  was  a  fine  set  of  Dr. 
Johnson's  works  in  a  dozen  volumes,  with  an 
early  edition  of  Boswell ;  all  of  Hoole's  Tasso 
and  Ariosto  ;  a  charming  little  edition  of  the 
British  essayists,  with  pretty  woodcuts ;  Be 
wick's  Birds  and  Quadrupeds  ;  Raynal's  Indies  ; 
the  Anti-Jacobin  ;  Plutarch's  Lives  ;  Dobson's 
Life  of  Petrarch ;  Marshall's  and  Bancroft's 
Lives  of  Washington ;  Miss  Burney's  and  Miss 
Edgeworth's  works ;  and  "  Sir  Charles  Grandi- 
son."  There  were  many  volumes  of  sermons, 
which  my  mother  was  fond  of  reading,  —  she 
was,  I  think,  the  last  person  who  habitually  read 
them, —  but  which  I  naturally  avoided.  There 
were  a  good  many  pretty  little  Italian  books, 
belonging  to  one  of  my  elder  sisters,  and  a  stray 
volume  of  Goethe  which  had  been  used  by 
another.  In  out-of-the-way  closets  I  collected 
the  disused  classical  textbooks  of  my  elder 
brothers,  and  made  a  little  library  to  be  pre 
served  against  that  magic  period  when  I  too 
should  be  a  "collegian."  To  these  were  to  be 
added  many  delightful  volumes  of  the  later  Eng 
lish  poets,  Collins,  Goldsmith,  Byron,  Camp 
bell,  and  others,  given  at  different  times  to  my 
aunt  by  George  Ticknor.  In  some  of  them 
—  as  in  Byron's  "Giaour"  —he  had  copied 
additional  stanzas,  more  lately  published  ;  this 
was  very  fascinating,  for  it  seemed  like  poetry 


16  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

in  the  making.  Later,  the  successive  volumes  of 
Jared  Sparks 's  historical  biographies  —  Wash 
ington,  Franklin,  Morris,  Ledyard,  and  the 
"  Library  of  American  Biography  " —  were  all 
the  gift  of  their  kindly  author,  who  had  often 
brought  whole  parcels  of  Washington's  and 
Franklin's  letters  for  my  mother  and  aunt  to 
look  over.  A  set  of  Scott's  novels  was  given 
to  my  elder  brother  by  his  life-long  crony,  John 
Holmes.  Besides  all  this,  the  family  belonged 
to  a  book  club,  —  the  first,  I  believe,  of  the 
now  innumerable  book  clubs  :  of  this  my  eld 
est  brother  was  secretary,  and  I  was  permitted 
to  keep,  with  pride  and  delight,  the  account  of 
the  books  as  they  came  and  went.  Add  to 
this  my  mother's  love  of  reading  aloud,  and  it 
will  be  seen  that  there  was  more  danger,  for 
a  child  thus  reared,  of  excess  than  of  scarcity. 
Yet  as  a  matter  of  fact  I  never  had  books 
enough,  nor  have  I  ever  had  to  this  day. 

Seeing  the  uniform  respect  with  which  my 
mother  and  aunt  and  elder  sisters  were  treated 
by  the  most  cultivated  men  around  us,  I  cannot 
remember  to  have  grown  up  with  the  slight 
est  feeling  that  there  was  any  distinction  of  sex 
in  intellect.  Why  women  did  not  go  to  college 
was  a  point  which  did  not  suggest  itself;  but 
one  of  my  sisters  studied  German  with  Pro 
fessor  Charles  Follen,  while  another  took  les- 


A   CAMBRIDGE   BOYHOOD  17 

sons  in  Latin  and  Italian  from  Professor  Bachi 
and  in  geometry  from  Professor  Benjamin 
Peirce.  I  forget  where  this  especial  sister 
studied  English,  but  she  wrote  for  me  all  the 
passages  that  were  found  worth  applauding  in 
my  commencement  oration.  Yet  it  is  a  curious 
fact  that  I  owe  indirectly  to  a  single  remark 
made  by  my  mother  all  the  opening  of  my  eyes 
to  the  intellectual  disadvantages  of  her  sex. 
There  came  to  Cambridge  a  very  accomplished 
stranger,  Mrs.  Rufus  King,  of  Cincinnati,  Ohio, 
—  afterward  Mrs.  Peter,  —  who  established  her 
self  there  about  1837,  directing  the  college 
training  of  a  younger  brother,  two  sons,  and 
two  nephews.  No  woman  in  Cambridge  was 
so  highly  educated ;  and  once,  as  she  was 
making  some  criticisms  at  our  house  upon  the 
inequalities  between  the  sexes,  my  mother  ex 
claimed  in  her  ardent  way,  "But  only  think, 
Mrs.  King,  what  an  education  you  have  ob 
tained."  "Yes,"  was  the  reply,  "but  how  did 
I  obtain  it  ? "  Then  followed  a  tale  almost  as 
pathetic  as  that  told  in  Mrs.  Somerville's  auto 
biography,  of  her  own  early  struggles  for  know 
ledge.  I  cannot  now  recall  what  she  said,  but 
it  sank  into  my  heart,  at  the  age  of  fifteen  or 
thereabouts ;  and  if  I  have  ever  done  one  thing 
to  secure  to  women  better  justice  in  any  direc 
tion,  the  first  impulse  came  from  that  fortunate 
question  and  reply. 


i8  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

More  important,  however,  than  all  this,  to 
my  enjoyment,  at  least,  was  the  musical  atmo 
sphere  that  pervaded  the  house.  My  young 
est  sister  was  an  excellent  pianist,  —  one  of 
the  first  in  this  region  to  play  Beethoven. 
Among  the  many  students  who  came  to  the 
house  there  were  three  who  played  the  flute 
well,  and  they  practiced  trios  with  her  accompa 
niment.  One  of  them  was  John  Dwight,  after 
wards  editor  of  the  "Journal  of  Music,"  and 
long  the  leading  musical  critic  of  Boston ;  an 
other  was  Christopher  Pearse  Cranch,  poet  and 
artist ;  and  the  third  was  William  Habersham 
from  Savannah,  who  had  a  silver  flute,  of  which 
I  remember  John  Dwight's  saying,  when  it  first 
made  its  appearance,  "  It  has  a  silver  sound." 
When  I  read  in  later  years  the  experiences  of 
the  music-loving  boy  in  "  Charles  Auchester," 
it  brought  back  vividly  the  happiness  with 
which,  when  sent  to  bed  at  eight  o'clock,  I  used 
to  leave  the  door  of  my  little  bedroom  ajar,  in 
order  that  I  might  go  to  sleep  to  music. 

Greater  still  were  the  joy  and  triumph  when 
Miss  Helen  Davis,  who  was  the  musical  queen 
of  our  Cambridge  world,  came  and  filled  the 
house  with  her  magnificent  voice,  singing  in  the 
dramatic  style  then  in  vogue  the  highly  senti 
mental  songs  that  rent  my  childish  heart  with  a 
touch  of  romance  that  happily  has  never  faded 


A   CAMBRIDGE   BOYHOOD  19 

away:  "The  Breaking  Waves  Dashed  High," 
"The  Outward  Bound,"  "Love  Not,"  "Fairy 
Bells,"  "  The  Evening  Gun,"  and  dozens  of 
others,  the  slightest  strain  of  which  brings  back 
to  me,  after  sixty  years,  every  thrill  of  her  voice, 
every  movement  of  her  fine  head.  Strange 
power  of  music,  strange  gift  to  be  bestowed  on 
one  who,  when  once  away  from  the  piano,  was 
simply  a  hearty,  good-natured  woman,  without  a 
trace  of  inspiration!  She  was  the  sister  of  Lieu 
tenant  (afterwards  Admiral)  Davis,  and  his  fine 
naval  achievements  at  Port  Royal  and  Memphis 
seemed  only  to  put  into  "  squadron-strophes  " 
the  magnificent  triumphs  of  her  song.  I  still 
recall  the  enchantment  with  which  I  heard,  one 
moonlit  summer  night,  the  fine  old  glee  "To 
Greece  we  give  our  Shining  Blades,"  sung  as 
a  serenade  under  my  sister's  window,  by  a  quar 
tette  consisting  of  Miss  Davis  and  her  brother, 
of  Miss  Harriet  Mills,  who  afterwards  became 
his  wife,  and  of  William  Story.  I  had  never 
before  heard  the  song,  and  it  made  me  feel,  in 
Keats' s  phrase,  as  if  1^  were  going  to  a  tour 
nament. 

I  went  to  a  woman's  school  till  I  was  eight, 
being  then  placed  for  five  years,  between  the 
ages  of  eight  and  thirteen,  in  the  large  private 
school  of  William  Wells,  an  institution  which 
was  then  regarded  as  being  —  with  the  possible 


20  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

exception  of  the  Boston  Latin  School  —  the 
best  place  in  which  to  fit  for  Harvard  Col 
lege,  and  which  was  therefore  much  sought  by 
the  best  Boston  families.  Mr.  Wells  was  an 
Englishman  of  the  old  stamp,  erect,  vigorous, 
manly,  who  abhorred  a  mean  or  cowardly  boy 
as  he  did  a  false  quantity.  The  school  was  a 
survival  of  a  type  which  still  lingers,  I  fancy,  in 
the  British  provinces,  —  honest  and  genuine, 
mainly  physical  in  its  discipline,  and  somewhat 
brutal  as  to  its  boyish  life  and  ways.  Being  a 
day-scholar  only,  I  escaped  something  of  the 
coarseness  and  actual  demoralization  which  ex 
isted  there ;  and  thanks  to  an  elder  brother, 
the  strongest  boy  in  the  school,  I  went  free  of 
the  frequent  pommeling  visited  by  the  larger 
boys  on  the  smaller.  I  will  not  go  so  far  as 
my  schoolmate,  the  late  Charles  C.  Perkins, 
who  used  simply  to  say  of  it,  when  questioned 
by  his  young  sons,  "My  dears,  it  was  hell;" 
but  even  as  a  day-scholar  I  recall  some  aspects 
of  it  with  hearty  dislike,  and  am  glad  that  it 
was  my  happy  lot  to  have  come  no  nearer. 
The  evil  was,  however,  tempered  by  a  great 
deal  of  wholesome  athletic  activity,  which  Mr. 
Wells  encouraged  :  there  was  perpetual  playing 
of  ball  and  of  fascinating  running  games ;  and 
we  were  very  likely  to  have  an  extra  half -holi 
day  when  skating  or  coasting  was  good. 


A   CAMBRIDGE   BOYHOOD  21 

There  was  no  real  cruelty  in  the  discipline  of 
the  school,  —  though  I  have  sometimes  seen 
this  attributed  to  it,  as  in  Adams's  "  Life  of 
Richard  Dana,"  —  but  Mr.  Wells  carried  always 
a  rattan  in  his  hand,  and  it  descended  frequently 
on  back  and  arm.  Being  very  fond  of  study  and 
learning  easily,  I  usually  escaped  the  rod  ;  but 
I  can  see  now  that  its  very  presence  was  some 
what  degrading  to  boyish  nature.  Mr.  Wells 
taught  us  absolutely  nothing  but  Latin  and 
Greek,  yet  these  he  inculcated  most  faithfully, 
and  I  have  heretofore  described,  in  an  essay 
"  On  an  Old  Latin  Text  Book,"  the  joy  I  took 
in  them.  I  well  remember  that  on  first  being 
promoted  to  translating  English  into  Greek,  I 
wrote  on  and  on,  purely  for  pleasure,  doing  the 
exercises  for  days  in  advance.  I  should  add 
that  he  taught  us  to  write  from  copies  set  by 
himself  in  a  clear  and  beautiful  handwriting, 
and  that  we  were  supposed  to  learn  something 
of  history  by  simply  reading  aloud  in  class  from 
Russell's  "  Modern  Europe  ;  "  this  being,  after 
all,  not  so  bad  a  way.  It  must  not  be  forgotten 
that  he  bestowed  a  positive  boon  upon  ic\by 
producing  a  Latin  grammar  of  his  own,  so  bi^ef 
and  simple  that  when  I  was  afterwards  callcl 
upon  to  administer  to  pupils  the  terrible  manual 
of  Andrews  and  Stoddard,  it  seemed  to  me,  as 
indeed  it  has  always  since  seemed,  a  burden 


22  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

too  intolerable  to  be  borne.  French  was  taught 
by  his  eldest  daughter,  an  excellent  woman, 
though  she  sometimes  had  a  way  of  tapping 
little  boys  on  the  head  with  her  thimble  ;  and 
mathematics  we  received  from  a  succession  of 
Harvard  students,  thimbleless.  For  a  time, 
one  fair  girl,  Mary  Story  —  William  Story's  sis 
ter,  and  afterwards  Mrs.  George  Ticknor  Curtis 
—  glided  in  to  her  desk  in  the  corner,  that* 
she  might  recite  Virgil  with  the  older  class. 

But  in  general  the  ill  effect  of  a  purely  mas 
culine  world  was  very  manifest  in  the  school, 
and  my  lifelong  preference  for  co-education 
was  largely  based  upon  what  I  saw  there.  I 
could  not  help  noticing  —  and  indeed  observed 
the  same  thing  in  another  boarding-school, 
where  I  taught  at  a  later  day  —  the  greater  re 
finement,  and  I  may  say  civilization,  of  the  day- 
scholars,  who  played  with  their  sisters  at  home, 
as  compared  with  those  little  exiles  who  had  no 
such  natural  companionship.  I  must  not  for 
get  one  almost  romantic  aspect  of  the  school 
in  the  occasional  advent  of  Spanish  boys,  usually 
fre  '  Porto  Rico,  who  were  as  good  as  dime 
navels  to  us,  with  their  dark  skins  and  sonorous 
.rlames,  —  Victoriano  Rosello,  Magin  Rigual,  Pe 
dro  Mangual.  They  swore  superb  Spanish  oaths, 
which  we  naturally  borrowed ;  and  they  once 
or  twice  drew  knives  upon  one  another,  with 


A   CAMBRIDGE   BOYHOOD  23 

an  air  which  the  "  Pirates'  Own  Book  "  offered 
nothing  to  surpass.  Nor  must  I  forget  that 
there  were  also  in  the  school  certain  traditions, 
superstitions,  even  mechanical  contrivances, 
which  were  not  known  in  the  world  outside. 
There  were  mechanisms  of  pulleys  for  keeping 
the  desk-lid  raised ;  the  boys  made  for  them 
selves  little  two-wheeled  trucks  to  ride  upon, 
and  every  seat  in  the  school  was  perforated 
with  two  small  holes  for  needles,  to  be  worked 
by  a  pulley,  for  the  sudden  impaling  of  a  fel 
low  student,  or  even  of  the  mathematical  usher. 
Enormous  myths  existed  as  to  what  had  been 
done,  in  the  way  of  rebellion,  by  the  pupils  of  a 
previous  generation  ;  and  the  initials  of  older 
students  still  remained  carved  in  vast  confusion 
on  the  end  of  the  woodshed,  like  the  wall  which 
commemorates  Canning  and  Byron  at  Harrow. 
Above  all,  a  literature  circulated  under  the 
desks,  to  be  read  surreptitiously,  —  such  books 
as  those  to  which  Emerson  records  his  grati 
tude  at  the  Latin  School ;  fortunately  nothing 
pernicious,  yet  much  that  was  exciting,  includ 
ing  little  dingy  volumes  of  "Baron  TrencV 
and  "  Rinaldo  Rinaldini,"  and  "  The  Three 
Spaniards,"  and  "The  Devil  on  Two  Sticks." 
Can  these  be  now  found  at  any  bookstore,  I 
wonder,  or  have  the  boys  of  the  present  gen 
eration  ever  heard  of  them  ? 


24  CHEERFUL   YESTERDAYS 

But  the  most  important  portion  of  a  boy's 
life  is  perhaps  his  outdoor  training,  since  to  live 
out  of  doors  is  to  be  forever  in  some  respects 
a  boy.  "  Who  could  be  before  me,  though  the 
palace  of  the  Caesars  crackt  and  split  with  em 
perors,  while  I,  sitting  in  silence  on  a  cliff  of 
Rhodes,  watcht  the  sun  as  he  swang  his  golden 
censer  athwart  the  heavens  ? "  Landor's  hero 
was  not  happier  than  my  playmate,  Charles 
Parsons,  and  myself,  as  we  lay  under  Lowell's 
willows  "at  the  causey's  end,"  after  a  day  at 
Mount  Auburn,  —  then  Sweet  Auburn  still,  — 
to  sort  out  our  butterflies  in  summer  or  divide 
our  walnuts  in  autumn,  while  we  chanted  uproar 
iously  the  "  Hunter's  Chorus  :  "  — 

"  We  roam  through  the  forest  and  over  the  mountain ; 
No  joy  of  the  court  or  banquet  like  this." 

We  always  made  a  pause  after  the  word  "  court," 
and  supposed  ourselves  to  be  hurling  defiance 
at  monarchies. 

Every  boy  of  active  tastes  —  and  mine  were 
eminently  such  —  must  become  the  one  thing 
or  the  other,  either  a  sportsman  or  a  naturalist ; 
and  I  have  never  regretted  that  it  was  my  lot  to 
become  the  latter.  My  fellow  townsman,  Dr. 
Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  describes  himself  as 
wandering  along  our  native  stream  "  with  reek 
ing  sandal  and  superfluous  gun."  My  sandals 
suffered,  also,  but  I  went  with  butterfly-net  and 


A   CAMBRIDGE   BOYHOOD  25 

tin  botanical  box.  Perhaps  these  preoccupied 
me  before  I  yearned  after  field-sports,  or  per 
haps  there  was  no  real  yearning.  I  can  remem 
ber  that  as  a  child  I  sometimes  accompanied  an 
elder  brother  or  cousin  to  pick  up  the  birds  he 
shot,  though  he  rarely  seemed  to  shoot  any  ; 
but  there  occurred  an  event  which,  slight  as  it 
was,  damped  all  longing  to  emulate  him.  Com 
ing  down  what  is  now  Divinity  Avenue  with  an 
older  boy,  George  Ware,  who  rejoiced  in  a  bow 
and  arrow,  we  stopped  under  the  mulberry-tree 
which  still  stands  at  the  entrance  of  the  street, 
and  he  aimed  at  a  beautiful  crested  cedar-bird 
which  was  feeding  on  the  mulberries.  By  some 
extraordinary  chance  he  hit  it,  and  down  came 
the  pretty  creature,  fluttering  and  struggling 
in  the  air,  with  the  cruel  arrow  through  its 
breast.  I  do  not  know  whether  the  actual 
sportsman  suffered  pangs  of  remorse,  but  I 
know  that  I  did,  and  feel  them  yet.  After 
wards  I  read  with  full  sympathy  Bettine  Bren- 
tano's  thoughts  about  the  dead  bird:  "God 
gives  him  wings,  and  I  shoot  him  down;  that 
chimes  not  in  tune."  I  later  learned  from  Tho- 
reau  to  study  birds  through  an  opera-glass. 

It  may  appear  strange  that  with  this  feeling 
about  birds  I  seemed  to  have  no  such  vivid 
feeling  about  fishes  or  insects.  Perhaps  it  was 
because  they  are  so  much  farther  from  the 


26  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

human,  and  touch  the  imagination  less.  I 
could  then  fish  all  day  by  the  seashore  and  could 
collect  insects  without  hesitation,  —  always  be 
ing  self-limited  in  the  latter  case  to  two  speci 
mens  of  each  species.  Since  the  Civil  War,  how 
ever,  I  find  that  I  can  do  neither  of  these  things 
without  compunction,  and  was  pleased  to  hear 
from  that  eminent  officer  and  thoroughly  manly 
man,  General  Francis  A.  Walker,  that  the  war 
had  a  similar  effect  on  him.  "Dulce  bellum 
inexpertis."  It  has  been  a  source  of  happiness 
for  life  to  have  acquired  such  early  personal 
acquaintance  with  the  numberless  little  people 
of  the  woods  and  mountains.  Every  spring 
they  come  out  to  meet  me,  each  a  familiar 
friend,  unchanged  in  a  world  where  all  else 
changes  ;  and  several  times  in  a  year  I  dream 
by  night  of  some  realm  gorgeous  with  gayly 
tinted  beetles  and  lustrous  butterflies.  Wild 
flowers,  also,  have  been  a  lasting  delight,  though 
these  are  a  little  less  fascinating  than  insects, 
as  belonging  to  a  duller  life.  Yet  I  associate 
with  each  ravaged  tract  in  my  native  town  the 
place  where  vanished  flowers  once  grew,  —  the 
cardinal  flowers  and  gentians  in  the  meadows, 
the  gay  rhexia  by  the  woodside,  and  the  tall 
hibiscus  by  the  river. 

Being  large  and  tolerably  strong,  I  loved  all 
kinds  of  athletic  exercises,  and  learned  to  swim 


A   CAMBRIDGE   BOYHOOD  27 

in  the  river  near  where  Professor  Horsford's 
active  imagination  has  established  the  "  Lief's 
booths  "  of  the  Norse  legends.  There  have 
been  few  moments  in  life  which  ever  gave  a 
sense  of  conquest  and  achievement  so  delicious 
as  when  I  first  clearly  made  my  way  through 
water  beyond  my  depth,  from  one  sedgy  bank 
to  another.  Skating  was  learned  on  Craigie's 
Pond,  now  drained,  and  was  afterwards  prac 
ticed  on  the  beautiful  black  ice  of  Fresh  Pond. 
We  played  baseball  and  football,  and  a  modified 
cricket,  and  on  Saturdays  made  our  way  to  the 
tenpin  alleys  at  Fresh  Pond  or  Porter's  Tavern. 
My  father  had  an  old  white  pony  which  pa 
tiently  ambled  under  me,  and  I  was  occasionally 
allowed  to  borrow  Dr.  Webster's  donkey,  the 
only  donkey  I  had  ever  seen.  Sometimes  we 
were  taken  to  Nahant  for  a  day  by  the  seaside, 
and  watched  there  the  swallows  actually  building 
their  nests  in  Swallows'  Cave,  whence  they  have 
long  since  vanished.  Perhaps  we  drove  down 
over  the  interminable  beach,  but  we  oftener 
went  in  the  steamboat  ;  and  my  very  earliest 
definite  recollection  is  that  of  being  afraid  to 
go  down  into  the  cabin  for  dinner  because  a 
black  waiter  —  the  first  I  ever  saw  —  had  just 
gone  down,  and  I  was  afraid.  Considering  how 
deeply  I  was  to  cast  in  my  lot  with  the  black 
race  in  later  years,  it  seems  curious  that  the 


28  CHEERFUL   YESTERDAYS 

acquaintance  should  have  begun  with  this  un 
substantial  and  misplaced  alarm.  Probably  the 
fact  was  fixed  firmly  in  memory  by  the  result 
ing  hunger. 

It  was  a  great  advantage  for  outdoor  training 
that  my  school  was  a  mile  off,  and  I  paced  the 
distance  to  and  fro,  twice  a  day,  through  what 
was  then  a  rural  region  interspersed  with  a 
few  large  houses  of  historical  associations.  The 
great  colonial  residences  on  Tory  Row,  of  which 
Craigie  House  was  only  one,  always  impressed 
the  imagination.  Sometimes  I  had  companions, 
—  my  elder  brother  for  a  time,  and  his  class 
mates,  Lowell  and  Story.  I  remember  tread 
ing  along  close  behind  them  once,  as  they  dis 
cussed  Spenser's  "Faerie  Queene,"  which  they 
had  been  reading,  and  which  led  us  younger 
boys  to  christen  a  favorite  play-place  "the 
Bower  of  Blisse."  Story  was  then  a  conspicu 
ously  handsome  boy,  with  a  rather  high-bred 
look,  and  overflowing  with  fun  and  frolic,  as 
indeed  he  was  during  his  whole  life.  Lowell 
was  at  that  time  of  much  more  ordinary  ap 
pearance,  short  and  freckled,  and  a  secondary 
figure  beside  Story ;  yet  in  later  life,  with  his 
fine  eyes  and  Apollo -like  brow,  he  became 
much  the  more  noticeable  of  the  two,  as  he 
was  certainly  far  superior  in  genius. 

Oftener  I  went  alone.     Sometimes  I  made 


A  CAMBRIDGE   BOYHOOD  29 

up  stories  as  I  went,  usually  magnifying  little 
incidents  or  observations  of  my  own  into  some 
prolonged  tale  with  a  fine  name,  having  an  im 
aginary  hero.  For  a  long  time  his  name  was 
D'Arlon,  from  the  person  of  that  name  in 
Taylor's  "Philip  van  Artevelde,"  which  my 
mother  was  reading  to  us.  In  these  imagin 
ings  all  the  small  wrongs  and  failures  of  my 
life  were  retrieved.  D'Arlon  went  through 
the  same  incidents  with  myself,  but  uniformly 
succeeded  where  I  had  failed,  and  came  out  of 
the  crisis  with  the  unerring  certainty  of  one  of 
Stanley  Weyman's  heroes.  One  of  my  chief 
playmates,  Thornton  Ware,  a  handsome  boy 
with  curly  black  hair,  the  admiration  of  all 
little  girls,  might  easily  distance  me  in  their 
regard,  but  had  no  chance  whatever  against 
the  imaginary  D'Arlon.  At  other  times  I  had 
no  material  for  a  story,  but  watched  the  robins, 
the  bluebirds,  and  above  all  the  insects,  acquir 
ing  an  eagle  eye  for  a  far-off  moth  or  beetle  on 
fence  or  wall.  I  remember  that  at  the  corner 
where  Craigie  Street  now  turns  off  from  Brattle 
Street,  there  was  a  clump  of  milkweed,  where 
every  day  there  was  some  new  variety  of  spot 
ted  ladybird  (coccinella  or  chrysomeld)  ;  and  I 
remember  pondering,  as  I  compared  them,  with 
pre-Danvinian  wonder,  whether  they  were  all 
created  from  the  beginning  as  separate  species, 


30  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

or  were  somehow  developed  from  one  another. 
On  other  days  I  played  a  game  of  football  a 
mile  long,  trying  to  kick  before  me  some  par 
ticular  stone  or  horse-chestnut  for  the  whole 
distance  from  the  school  door  to  my  own 
gate;  sometimes  betting  heavily  with  myself, 
and  perhaps  losing  manfully,  like  Dick  Swiv- 
eller  at  his  solitary  cribbage.  Then  in  winter 
there  was  always  the  hope  of  "  punging,"  get 
ting  a  ride  on  the  runners  of  a  sleigh,  or  hitch 
ing  my  sled  behind  some  vehicle ;  and  in  spring 
that  of  riding  with  the  driver  of  an  empty 
ice-cart  or  walking  beside  a  full  one,  and  watch 
ing  the  fine  horses  that  then,  in  endless  pro 
cession,  drew  heavy  wagons  bearing  the  winter 
harvest  of  Fresh  Pond  to  be  shipped  to  distant 
lands. 

My  most  immediate  playmate  was  the  next- 
door  neighbor,  already  mentioned,  who  in  later 
life  was  a  medical  professor  in  Brown  Univer 
sity.  He  was  a  prim,  grave  little  boy,  and  was 
called  "  old-fashioned ;  "  he  was  very  preco 
cious,  and  though  only  three  months  older  than 
myself  was  a  year  before  me  in  college,  graduat 
ing  at  just  seventeen,  —  each  of  us  being  the 
youngest  in  our  respective  classes.  There  was 
between  our  houses  only  the  field  now  occupied 
by  the  Hemenway  Gymnasium  and  the  Scien 
tific  School;  and  while  we  were  not  school- 


A   CAMBRIDGE   BOYHOOD  31 

mates,  we  were  almost  constantly  together  out 
of  school  hours.  Many  an  hour  we  spent  por 
ing  over  the  pictures  in  the  large  old  Rees'  Cy 
clopaedia  ;  afterwards,  when  weary,  piling  up  the 
big  volumes  for  fortifications,  to  be  mutually 
assailed  by  cannonading  apples  from  a  perpetual 
barrel  in  the  closet.  Meanwhile,  the  kindly 
old  grandfather,  working  away  at  his  sermons 
or  his  "  American  Annals,"  never  seemed  dis 
turbed  by  our  romping ;  and  I  remember  viv 
idly  one  winter  evening,  when  he  went  to  the 
window,  and,  scratching  with  his  knife-blade 
through  the  thick  frost,  shaped  the  outlines  of 
rough  brambles  below,  and  made  a  constella 
tion  of  stars  above,  with  the  added  motto,  "  Per 
aspera  ad  astra,"  —  then  explaining  to  us  its 
meaning,  that  through  difficulties  we  must  seek 
the  stars. 

It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  we  did  not 
have,  sixty  years  ago  in  New  England,  associa 
tions  already  historic.  At  home  we  had  vari 
ous  family  portraits  of  ancestors  in  tie-wigs  or 
powdered  hair.  We  knew  the  very  treasures 
which  Dr.  Holmes  describes  as  gathered  in  his 
attic,  and  never  were  tired  of  exploring  old 
cupboards  and  hunting  up  traditions.  We  de 
lighted  to  pore  over  the  old  flat  tombstones  in 
the  Old  Cambridge  cemetery,  stones  with  long 
Latin  inscriptions,  on  which  even  the  language 


32  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

is  dead,  celebrating  virtues  ending  in  issimus 
and  errimus.  The  most  impressive  of  all  was 
the  Vassall  monument,  raised  on  pillars  above 
the  rest,  and  bearing  no  words,  only  the  carved 
goblet  and  sun  (Vas  -  sol),  —  the  monument 
beneath  which  lie,  according  to  tradition,  the 
bodies  of  two  slaves  :  — 

"  At  her  feet  and  at  her  head 
Lies  a  slave  to  attend  the  dead, 
But  their  dust  is  white  as  hers." 

This  poem  was  not  yet  written,  but  Holmes's 
verses  on  this  churchyard  were  familiar  on  our 
lips,  and  we  sighed  with  him  over  his  sister's 
grave,  and  over  the  stone  where  the  French 
exile  from  Honfleur  was  buried  and  his  epitaph 
was  carved  in  French.  Moreover,  the  "ever- 
roaming  girls  "  whom  Holmes  exhorted  to  bend 
over  the  wall  and  "  sweep  the  simple  lines " 
with  the  floating  curls  then  fashionable,  —  these 
were  our  own  neighbors  and  sweethearts,  and  it 
all  seemed  in  the  last  degree  poetic  and  charm 
ing.  More  suggestive  than  all  these  were  the 
eloquent  fissures  in  the  flat  stones  where  the 
leaden  coats  of  arms  had  been  pried  out  to  be 
melted  into  bullets  for  the  Continental  army. 
And  it  all  so  linked  us  with  the  past  that  when, 
years  after,  I  stood  outside  the  Temple  Church 
in  London,  and,  looking  casually  down,  saw  be 
neath  my  feet  the  name  of  Oliver  Goldsmith, 


A   CAMBRIDGE   BOYHOOD  33 

it  really  gave  no  more  sense  of  a  dignified  his 
toric  past  than  those  stones  at  my  birthplace. 
Nor  did  it  actually  carry  me  back  so  far  in 
time. 

In  the  same  way,  our  walks,  when  not  di 
rected  toward  certain  localities  for  rare  flow 
ers  or  birds  or  insects,  —  as  to  Mount  Auburn 
sands,  now  included  in  the  cemetery  of  that 
name,  or  the  extensive  jungle  north  of  Fresh 
Pond,  where  the  herons  of  Longfellow's  poem 
had  their  nests,  —  were  more  or  less  guided 
by  historic  objects.  There  was  the  pictur 
esque  old  Revolutionary  Powder  Mill  in  what 
is  now  Somerville,  or  the  remains  of  redoubts 
on  Winter  Hill,  where  we  used  to  lie  along 
the  grassy  slopes  and  repel  many  British  on 
slaughts.  Often  we  went  to  the  fascinating 
wharves  of  Boston,  then  twice  as  long  as  now, 
and  full  of  sea-smells  and  crossed  yards  and 
earringed  sailors.  A  neighbor's  boy  had  the 
distinction  of  being  bad  enough  to  be  actually 
sent  to  sea  for  a  dubious  reformation  ;  and 
though,  when  he  came  back,  I  was  forbidden 
to  play  with  him,  on  the  ground  that  he  not 
only  swore,  but  carried  an  alleged  pistol,  yet  it 
was  something  to  live  on  the  same  street  with 
one  so  marked  out  from  the  list  of  common 
boys,  and  to  watch  him  from  afar  exhibiting  to 
youths  of  laxer  training  what  seemed  to  be  the 


34  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

weapon.  I  may  here  add  that  the  only  other 
child  with  whom  I  was  forbidden  to  play  be 
came  in  later  life  an  eminent  clergyman. 

Once  we  undertook  to  go  as  far  as  Bunker 
Hill,  and  were  ignominiously  turned  back  by 
a  party  of  Charlestown  boys,  —  "  Charlestown 
pigs,"  as  they  were  then  usually  and  affec 
tionately  called,  —  who  charged  us  with  being 
"Port  chucks"  (that  is,  from  Cambridgeport) 
or  "  Pointers  "  (that  is,  from  Lechmere  Point, 
or  East  Cambridge),  and  ended  with  the  mild 
torture  of  taking  away  our  canes.  Or  we 
would  visit  the  ruins  of  the  Ursuline  Convent, 
whose  flames  I  had  seen  from  our  front  door  in 
Cambridge,  standing  by  my  mother's  side ;  all 
that  I  had  read  of  persecutions  not  implanting 
so  lasting  a  love  of  liberty  as  that  one  spectacle. 
I  stood  by  her  also  the  day  after,  when  she 
went  out  to  take  the  gauge  of  public  opinion 
in  consultation  with  the  family  butcher,  Mr. 
Houghton ;  and  I  saw  her  checkmated  by  his 
leisurely  retort,  "Wai,  I  dunno,  Mis'  Higgin- 
son  ;  I  guess  them  biships  are  pretty  dissipated 
characters."  The  interest  was  enhanced  by 
the  fact  that  a  youthful  Cambridge  neighbor, 
Maria  Fay,  was  a  pupil  in  the  school  at  the 
time,  and  was  held  up  by  the  terrified  precep 
tress  to  say  to  the  rioters,  "My  father  is  a 
judge,  and  if  you  don't  go  away  he  will  put  you 


A   CAMBRIDGE   BOYHOOD  35 

all  in  j ail"  The  effect  of  the  threat  may  have 
been  somewhat  impaired  by  the  fact  that  her 
parent  was  but  a  peaceful  judge  of  probate,  and 
could  only  have  wreaked  his  vengeance  on  their 
last  wills  and  testaments.  At  any  rate,  there 
stood  the  blackened  walls  for  many  years,  until 
the  bricks  were  used  in  building  the  inside 
walls  of  the  cathedral  towers  in  Boston  ;  and 
there  was  no  other  trace  of  the  affray,  except 
the  inscription  "  Hell  to  the  Pope,"  scrawled 
in  charcoal  on  a  bit  of  lingering  plaster.  We 
gazed  at  it  with  awe,  as  if  it  were  a  memorial 
of  Bloody  Mary  —  with  a  difference. 

Greatly  to  my  bliss,  I  escaped  almost  abso 
lutely  all  those  rigors  of  the  old  New  England 
theology  which  have  darkened  the  lives  of  so 
many.  I  never  heard  of  the  Five  Points  of 
Calvinism  until  maturity ;  never  was  converted, 
never  experienced  religion.  We  were  expected 
to  read  the  New  Testament,  but  there  was 
nothing  enforced  about  the  Old,  and  we  were 
as  fortunate  as  a  little  girl  I  have  since  known, 
who  was  sure  that  there  could  be  no  such  place 
as  hell,  because  their  minister  had  never  men 
tioned  it.  Even  Sunday  brought  no  actual 
terrors.  I  have  the  sweetest  image  of  my 
mother  sitting  ready  dressed  for  church,  before 
my  sisters  had  descended,  and  usually  bearing 
a  flower  in  her  hand.  In  winter  we  commonly 


36  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

drove  to  the  parish  church  in  an  open  sleigh, 
and  once  had  an  epoch-making  capsize  into  a 
snowdrift.  As  I  was  seized  by  the  legs  and 
drawn  forth,  I  felt  like  the  hero  of  one  of  the 
Waverley  novels,  and  as  if  I  had  been  in  Rob 
Roy's  cave.  No  doubt  we  observed  the  Sab 
bath  after  a  mild  fashion,  for  I  once  played  a 
surreptitious  game  of  ball  with  my  brother 
behind  the  barn  on  that  day,  and  it  could  not 
have  made  me  so  very  happy  had  it  not  been, 
as  Emerson  says,  "  drugged  with  the  relish  of 
fear  and  pain."  Yet  I  now  recall  with  pleasure 
that  while  my  mother  disapproved  of  all  but 
sacred  music  on  Sunday,  she  ruled  that  all  good 
music  was  sacred  ;  and  that  she  let  us  play  on 
Sunday  evening  a  refreshing  game  of  cards,  — 
geographical  cards,  —  from  which  we  learned 
that  the  capital  of  Dahomey  was  Abomey. 
Compared  with  the  fate  of  many  contempo 
raries,  what  soothing  and  harmless  chains  were 
these ! 

In  all  these  early  recollections  there  has  been 
small  mention  of  the  other  sex,  and  yet  that 
sweet  entity  was  to  me,  and  in  fact  to  all  of 
us  boys,  a  matter  of  most  momentous  import 
ance.  We  were  all,  it  now  seems  to  me,  a  set  of 
desperate  little  lovers,  with  formidable  rivalries, 
suspicions,  and  jealousies  ;  and  we  had  names 
of  our  own  devising  for  each  juvenile  maiden, 


A  CAMBRIDGE   BOYHOOD  37 

by  which  she  could  be  mentioned  without  peril 
of  discovery.  One  of  the  older  boys,  being  of 
a  peculiarly  inventive  turn,  got  up  a  long  and 
imaginary  wooing  of  a  black-eyed  damsel  who 
went  to  school  in  Cambridge.  He  showed  us 
letters  and  poems,  and  communicated  all  the 
ups  and  downs  of  varying  emotion.  They  were 
finally  separated,  amid  mutual  despair,  and  I  do 
not  suppose  that  she  had  ever  known  him  by 
sight.  We  had  our  share  of  dancing-schools, 
always  in  private  houses,  taught  sometimes  by 
the  elder  Papanti,  and  sometimes  by  a  most 
graceful  woman,  Miss  Margaret  Davis,  sister  of 
the  songstress  I  have  described.  We  had  May 
day  parties,  usually  at  Mount  Auburn,  and 
showed  in  the  chilly  May  mornings  that  heroic 
courage  which  Lowell  plaintively  attributes  to 
children  on  these  occasions.  But  all  this  sport 
ing  with  Amaryllis  soon  became  secondary  for 
us,  being  Cambridge  boys,  to  the  great  realm 
of  academical  life,  to  which  no  girls  might  then 
aspire.  That  vast  mysterious  region  lies  always 
before  the  boy  who  is  bred  in  a  college  town, 
alluring,  exciting,  threatening,  as  the  sea  lies 
before  the  sailor's  son.  One  by  one  he  sees 
his  elder  playmates  glide  away  upon  it,  until  at 
last  his  turn  comes ;  and  before  I  was  fourteen 
I  myself  was  launched. 


II 

A   CHILD    OF    THE    COLLEGE 

I  COME  back  to  Cambridge  every  autumn, 
when  the  leaves  are  falling  from  the  trees,  and 
the  old  university,  like  the  weird  witch-hazel 
in  the  groves,  puts  out  fresh  blossoms  at  the 
season  when  all  else  grows  sere.  It  is  a  never 
failing  delight  to  behold  the  hundreds  of  new 
comers  who  then  throng  our  streets  :  boys  with 
smooth  and  unworn  faces,  full  of  the  zest  of 
their  own  being,  taking  the  whole  world  as 
having  been  made  for  them,  which  indeed  it 
was  ;  —  willing  to  do  any  needful  kindness  to 
an  elder  human  being,  as  in  rescuing  him  from 
carriage-wheels  or  picking  him  out  of  the  mud, 
but  otherwise  as  wholesomely  indifferent  to  his 
very  existence  as  if  he  were  a  lamp-post  or  a 
horseless  vehicle.  If  he  be  wise,  he  joyfully  ac 
cepts  the  situation,  and  takes  in  it  something  of 
the  pride  which  a  father  feels  when  his  young 
est  son  overtops  him  by  a  head.  Instead  of 
grudging  to  the  new-comers  this  empire  of  the 
immediate  future,  I  feel  always  impelled  to  wel 
come  them  to  it ;  in  behalf  of  the  human  race, 


A   CHILD   OF  THE   COLLEGE  39 

I  rejoice  to  see  its  vigor  so  lustily  maintained ; 
the  visible  self-confidence  is  well  founded,  and 
has  the  facts  on  its  side.  The  future  is  theirs 
to  command,  not  ours ;  it  belongs  to  them  even 
more  than  they  think  it  does,  and  this  is  un 
doubtedly  saying  a  good  deal. 

This  ready  self-subordination  to  these  kings 
of  to-morrow  may  come,  in  my  own  case,  from 
the  fact  that  I  am,  more  than  any  one  else 
now  living  in  Cambridge,  except  perhaps  John 
Holmes  and  Professor  Norton,  a  child  of  the 
college;  and  the  latter  is  my  junior,  and  was 
once  in  my  eyes  one  of  these  very  boys.  All 
three  of  us  were,  so  to  speak,  born  in  the  col 
lege,  bred  to  it,  and  interested  from  earliest 
recollection  in  its  men.  Never  having  been 
or  having  wished  to  be  one  of  its  officials,  I 
look  upon  its  annual  harvest  of  youthful  life 
with  all  the  more  dispassionate  interest.  Liv 
ing  in  a  college  town  is,  after  all,  very  much 
like  dwelling  just  outside  of  a  remarkably  large 
glass  beehive,  where  one  can  watch  all  day 
long  the  busy  little  people  inside;  can  see 
them  going  incessantly  to  and  fro  at  their 
honey-making,  pausing  occasionally  to  salute 
or  sting  one  another  —  and  all  without  the 
slightest  peril  to  the  beholder.  Life  becomes 
rich  in  this  safe  and  curious  contemplation,  and 
this  is  a  pursuit  which  every  boy  in  a  college 


40  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

town  begins  very  early.  It  was  thus  that 
Charles  Parsons  and  I,  from  the  time  we  were 
allowed  to  go  alone  in  the  street,  studied  the 
little  academical  world  on  whose  edge  we  dwelt. 

At  ten  years  of  age,  it  is  certain,  we  could 
repeat  the  list  of  every  undergraduate  class 
alphabetically,  and  prided  ourselves  on  knowing 
every  student  by  sight.  This  was  not  so  in 
credible  as  it  would  now  seem,  for  the  classes 
rarely  had  more  than  fifty  each,  the  whole 
college  counting  little  more  than  half  as  many 
as  a  single  class  now  numbers.  All  these 
young  fellows  we  not  merely  knew  by  sight,  but 
studied  individually,  —  their  nicknames,  their 
games,  their  individual  haunts  ;  —  we  watched 
them  at  football  or  cricket ;  had  our  favorites 
and  our  aversions ;  waited  anxiously  for  the 
time  when,  once  or  twice  a  year,  the  professor 
of  chemistry  gave  many  of  them  "  exhilarat 
ing  gas,"  as  it  was  called,  on  the  triangle  then 
known  as  the  Delta,  and  they  gesticulated, 
made  speeches,  or  recited  poetry,  as  uncon 
scious  of  their  self  -  revelation  as  an  autobi- 
ographer. 

Sometimes  in  summer  evenings  —  for  the 
college  term  then  lasted  until  the  middle  of 
July  —  we  would  amuse  ourselves  by  selecting 
in  the  street  some  single  student,  and  trailing 
him  from  place  to  place,  like  the  Indians  of 


A   CHILD  OF  THE   COLLEGE  41 

whom  we  had  read  in  Cooper's  novels ;  follow 
ing  wherever  he  went,  watching,  waiting,  often 
losing  and  then  finding  him  again,  and  perhaps 
delaying  our  own  early  bedtime  that  we  might 
see  him  through  some  prolonged  evening  call, 
though  he  was  all  unconscious  of  our  watch 
ful  care.  I  can  still  breathe  the  aroma  of  the 
lilac-bushes  among  which  we  ensconced  our 
selves,  and  can  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  maiden 
who  possibly  appeared  at  the  door  to  bid  him 
a  demure  good -night.  On  other  days  there 
was  the  Harvard  Washington  Corps,  or  college 
military  company,  to  be  watched  at  its  drill  on 
the  common,  or  on  its  proud  march  to  the  sub 
urban  tavern  where  it  dined, —  Porter's,  at  what 
is  now  North  Cambridge,  —  and  on  its  some 
times  devious  return.  O  ecstasy  of  childish 
love  for  costume  and  rhythm  and  glory !  In 
later  life  I  have  ridden  at  the  head  of  a  thou 
sand  marching  men,  and  felt  no  such  sense  of 
exaltation  above  the  low  earth  as  when  I  first 
saw  my  favorite  elder  brother,  in  the  prescribed 
white  trousers  and  black  coat,  with  epaulets 
and  befrogged  sleeves,  parading  as  second  lieu 
tenant  before  one  of  the  swaying  platoons  of 
the  "  College  Company." 

With  all  this  precocious  interest  in  the 
students,  it  is  needless  to  say  that  I  awaited 
with  absorbing  eagerness  the  time  when  I 


42  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

should  enter  that  great  little  world  into  which 
my  immediate  playmate  had  preceded  me  ;  and 
that  it  was  a  blissful  moment  when  I  at  last 
found  myself,  one  autumn  morning,  admitted 
on  examination,  without  conditions,  and  stand 
ing  on  the  steps  of  University  Hall,  looking 
about  with  a  new  sense  of  ownership  on  the 
trees  my  father  had  planted.  I  was  not  yet 
fourteen,  and  was  the  youngest  in  my  class  ; 
but  never  since  in  life  have  I  had  such  a  vivid 
sense  of  a  career,  an  opportunity,  a  battle  to 
be  won.  This  is  what  gilds  the  memory  of 
college  life  :  that  we  dwelt  there  like  Goethe's 
fairy  Melusina  or  the  heroine  of  O'Brien's  "Dia 
mond  Lens,"  in  a  real  but  miniature  world,  a 
microcosm  of  the  visible  universe.  It  seems  to 
me  that  I  never  have  encountered  a  type  of 
character  in  the  greater  world  which  was  not 
represented  more  or  less  among  my  classmates, 
or  dealt  with  any  thought  or  principle  which 
was  not  discussed  in  elementary  form  in  our 
evening  walks  up  Brattle  Street. 

Harvard  College  was  then  a  comparatively 
small  affair,  as  was  the  village  in  which  it 
existed  ;  but  both  had  their  day  of  glory,  which 
was  Commencement  Day,  now  a  merely  aca 
demic  ceremonial,  but  then  a  public  festival  for 
eastern  Massachusetts.  It  has  been  so  well 
described  by  both  Lowell  and  John  Holmes 


A   CHILD   OF   THE   COLLEGE  43 

that  I  will  not  dwell  upon  it  in  detail.  The 
streets  were  filled  with  people,  arriving  from 
far  and  near  ;  there  were  booths,  fairs,  horse 
races,  encampments  of  alleged  gamblers  in  out 
lying  groves.  Perhaps  the  most  striking  single 
illustrations  of  the  day's  importance  lay  in  the 
fact  that  the  banks  in  Boston  were  closed  on 
that  day,  and  that  Boston  gentlemen,  even  if  not 
graduates  of  the  college,  often  came  to  Cam 
bridge  for  a  day  or  two,  at  that  time,  taking 
rooms  and  receiving  their  friends.  My  grand 
father,  Stephen  Higginson,  used  to  come  over 
from  Brookline,  take  quarters  in  this  way  at 
Porter's  tavern  (the  Boylston  Street  Porter), 
and  keep  open  house,  with  probable  punch 
bowl.  The  practice  had  ceased  before  the 
period  of  my  recollection,  but  my  cousin,  the 
Rev.  William  Henry  Channing,  has  vividly  de 
scribed  the  way  in  which  my  grandfather  must 
have  set  out  on  these  expeditions.1 

l  "  Owing  doubtless  to  the  fact  that,  following  the  univer 
sal  fashion  of  gentlemen  of  his  position  in  that  period,  he 
wore  his  gray  hair  powdered,  he  was  to  me  the  type  of  all 
that  was  most  ancient  and  venerable.  His  imposing  figure, 
air,  and  manner  filled  me  with  ever  new  admiration,  as, 
clothed  in  entire  black,  with  his  snowy  locks  and  queue,  and 
his  ruffled  wristbands  and  shirt  bosom,  white  cravat  above, 
and  tightly  buttoned  gaiters  or  buckled  shoes  below,  with 
broad  brimmed  hat  and  gold-headed  cane,  he  descended  the 
doorsteps  to  enter  his  carriage.  This  carriage,  one  of  the 
large,  brightly  ornamented,  highly  polished  style  then  in 


44  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

For  the  rest  of  the  year  Cambridge  relapsed 
into  a  kind  of  privacy,  except  that  three  days 
of  "  Exhibition  "  —  a  sort  of  minor  Commence 
ment,  with  public  exercises  —  were  distributed 
through  the  terms,  and  brought  together  many 
strangers.  At  ordinary  times  the  external  status 
of  the  college  was  more  like  that  of  some  coun 
try  academy  than  that  of  an  embryo  university. 
There  were  but  seven  buildings  inside  the  col 
lege  yard,  and  but  one  outside.  There  are  now 
about  3000  students,  of  various  grades  and  de 
partments,  registered  in  Cambridge;  in  1837, 
when  I  entered  college,  there  were  but  305 
such  students  ;  and  in  1841,  when  I  graduated, 
but  366.  In  like  manner,  Cambridge  is  now 
a  city  of  some  85,000  inhabitants,  whereas  in 
1840  it  had  but  8409,  distributed  among  three 
villages,  of  which  Old  Cambridge,  grouped 
round  the  college  buildings,  had  less  than  half. 

vogue,  with  a  lofty  cushioned  box-seat  for  the  coachman  and 
platform  behind  for  the  footman,  had  been  built  in  England, 
whence  my  grandfather  had  lately  returned,  and  was,  I  pre 
sume,  of  very  much  the  same  pattern  as  thousands  which  are 
seen  every  day  in  all  European  and  American  cities.  But 
it  affected  my  imagination  then  as  a  princely  equipage.  So, 
as  all  boys  are  wont  to  fancy,  my  grandfather  appeared  to 
me  the  peer  of  the  noblest.  And  still  more  stately  and  ele 
gant  was  he  to  my  imagination  when  attired  in  full  costume 
to  receive  his  guests  at  dinner  or  evening  parties  in  his  own 
house." — Memoir  of  William  Henry  Channing,  by  O.  B. 
Frothingham,  p.  Q. 


A   CHILD   OF  THE   COLLEGE  45 

Yet,  after  all,  these  figures  make  little  differ 
ence  to  the  boy ;  a  crowd  is  a  crowd,  whether 
it  be  counted  by  hundreds  or  thousands,  since 
you  see  at  the  most  only  those  immediately 
pressing  round  you.  For  us,  I  repeat,  the  col 
lege  was  a  world  ;  whether  larger  or  smaller  on 
the  outskirts  was  of  secondary  importance. 

It  is  mistakenly  assumed  by  clergymen  and 
editors  that  this  little  community,  in  its  village 
days,  was  necessarily  more  virtuous,  or  at  least 
more  decorous,  than  now.  The  fact  is  all  the 
other  way  ;  for  the  early  drinking  habits  of  soci 
ety  still  flourished,  and  the  modern  temperance 
agitation  was  but  beginning.  When  Allston, 
the  painter,  kept  the  records  of  the  Hasty 
Pudding  Club,  in  rhyme,  he  thus  described 
the  close  of  the  annual  dinner  of  that  frugal 
body :  — 

"  And  each  one  to  evince  his  spunk 
Vied  with  his  neighbor  to  get  drunk ; 
Nor  tedious  was  the  mighty  strife 
With  these  true-blooded  blades  of  life, 
For  less  than  hours  two  had  gone 
When  roaring  mad  was  every  one." 

Allston  left  college  in  1800,  forty  years  before 
my  day  ;  yet  it  was  in  my  own  time  that  the 
Rev.  Dr.  John  Pierce  recorded  in  his  Diary 
that  he  had  seen  men  intoxicated  at  <£  B  K 
dinners  —  this  society  being  composed  only  of 
the  best  scholars  in  each  class — who  were 


46  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

never  seen  in  this  condition  at  any  other  time. 
We  boys  used  to  watch  the  Harvard  Washing 
ton  Corps  on  its  return  from  the  dinner  at 
Porter's,  quite  secure  that  some  of  our  acquaint 
ances  would  stagger  out  of  the  ranks  and  find 
lodgment  in  the  gutter.  The  regular  Class 
Day  celebration  was  for  the  seniors  to  gather 
under  Liberty  Tree  and  serve  out  buckets  of 
punch  to  all  comers.  Robbing  hen-roosts  was 
common  enough,  and  youths  of  good  standing  in 
my  own  class  would  organize  marauding  expedi 
tions,  with  large  baskets,  to  bring  back  pears 
and  melons  from  the  market  gardens  in  what 
is  now  Belmont.  These  thefts  hurt  no  one's 
reputation  at  that  day,  whereas  now  to  be 
suspected  of  them  would  dethrone  the  most 
popular  man  :  he  would  be  voted  a  "  cad  "  or  a 
"  mucker ; "  he  would  be  dropped  from  his 
clubs.  As  for  the  drinking  habit,  I  have  no 
statistics  to  offer,  but  an  intoxicated  student  is 
the  rarest  possible  sight  in  the  streets  of  Cam 
bridge.  This  may  not  involve  a  clear  gain  in 
morality,  but  the  improvement  in  gentlemanli- 
ness  is  enormous. 

The  college  of  that  period  has  been  some 
times  described  as  drawing  its  members  from 
a  smaller  geographical  range  than  at  present. 
This  was  of  course  true  in  a  general  way,  yet 
in  one  respect  the  precise  contrary  was  the 


A  CHILD   OF   THE   COLLEGE  47 

case.  In  that  ante-bellum  period,  the  Southern 
students  were  a  noticeable  element  in  the  col 
lege,  and  a  very  conspicuous  one  in  the  Law 
School,  being  drawn  thereto  by  the  great  repu 
tation  of  Judge  Story ;  and  as  these  youths 
were  all  reared  under  the  influence  of  slavery, 
they  contributed  a  far  more  distinctive  element 
in  Cambridge  society  than  anything  now  to 
be  seen  there.  The  difference  between  the 
richest  student  from  New  York  or  California 
and  the  very  poorest  and  most  abstemious  boy 
from  some  New  England  farm  is  not  nearly  so 
marked  as  that  which  then  distinguished  the 
demeanor  of  the  average  Southern  from  the 
average  New  England  student.  As  a  rule, 
the  Southerners  were  clearly  the  favorites  in 
Cambridge  society  :  they  usually  had  charming 
manners,  social  aptitudes,  imperious  ways,  abun 
dant  leisure,  and  plenty  of  money ;  they  were 
graceful  dancers,  often  musical,  and  sometimes 
well  taught.  On  the  other  hand,  they  were 
often  indolent,  profligate,  and  quarrelsome  ;  and 
they  were  almost  wholly  responsible  for  the 
"town  and  gown"  quarrels,  now  extinct,  but 
then  not  infrequent.  Contributing  sometimes 
the  most  brilliant  young  men  to  the  Law  School, 
they  furnished  also  a  number  who,  having  been 
brought  up  on  remote  plantations  and  much 
indulged,  had  remained  grossly  ignorant.  I 


48  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

remember  one  in  particular  who  was  supposed 
to  have  entered  the  Law  School,  but  who 
proved  to  be  taking  private  lessons  in  some 
thing  from  Charles  Devens,  afterwards  judge 
and  major-general.  A  mystery  hung  about 
the  matter  till  it  was  found  that  the  youth, 
who  was  as  showy  as  any  of  his  companions  in 
dress  and  bearing,  was  simply  learning  to  read 
and  write. 

Let  us  now  turn  back  to  the  condition  of 
intellectual  affairs.  The  entrance  examination 
of  those  days  was  by  no  means  the  boys'  play 
that  is  sometimes  asserted.  It  represented,  no 
doubt,  a  year  less  of  work  than  the  present  ex 
amination  ;  yet  it  included  some  points  not  now 
made  obligatory,  as  for  instance  the  render 
ing  of  English  into  Greek  and  Latin.  We 
were  also  called  upon  to  translate  at  sight 
from  authors  not  previously  read,  although  this 
provision  did  not  appear  in  the  catalogues, 
and  is  usually  cited  as  of  more  recent  origin. 
Once  fairly  inside,  my  class  was  lucky  enough 
to  encounter  a  very  exceptional  period,  —  the 
time,  namely,  when  a  temporary  foray  into  the 
elective  system  took  place,  anticipating  in  a 
small  way  the  very  desirable  results  which  have 
followed  from  its  later  application;  although 
that  first  experiment  was,  unluckily,  discon 
tinued  in  a  few  years  under  a  more  conserva- 


A  CHILD   OF  THE   COLLEGE  49 

live  president.  Meanwhile,  the  class  of  1841 
was  one  of  the  very  few  which  enjoyed  its 
benefits.  Under  the  guidance  of  George  Tick- 
nor,  the  method  had  long  been  applied  to  the 
modern  languages ;  but  we  were  informed  one 
day,  to  our  delight,  that  it  was  to  be  extended 
also  to  mathematics,  with  a  prospect  of  further 
expansion.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  word 
"elective  "  did  not  appear  on  the  college  cata 
logues  until  1841-42,  but  for  two  years  previous 
this  special  announcement  about  mathematics 
had  been  given  in  a  footnote.  The  spirit  of  a 
new  freedom  began  at  once  to  make  itself  felt 
in  other  departments;  the  Latin  and  Greek 
professors,  for  instance,  beginning  to  give  lec 
tures,  though  in  an  irregular  way,  in  addition 
to  their  usual  duty  of  extracting  from  us  what 
small  knowledge  we  possessed.  The  reason 
why  the  experiment  was  made  with  mathe 
matics  was  understood  to  be  that  Professor 
Peirce  had  grown  weary  of  driving  boys  through 
the  differential  calculus  by  force,  and  Profes 
sor  Channing  had  declared  that  all  taste  for 
mathematics  was  a  matter  of  special  inspira 
tion.  For  myself,  I  eagerly  took  this  study  as 
an  elective,  with  about  ten  classmates  ;  nor  had 
I  any  reason  to  repent  the  choice. 

Professor  Benjamin  Peirce,  our  mathematical 
teacher,  was  then  put,  by  general  opinion,  at  the 


50  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

head  of  American  mathematicians,  —  a  place 
which,  I  believe,  he  still  retains  by  tradition.  In 
his  later  years,  and  after  the  abandonment  of  the 
temporary  elective  method,  he  may  have  be 
come  discouraged  or  apathetic,  but  when  I  knew 
him  he  was  in  his  prime,  and  he  was  to  me  of 
all  teachers  the  most  inspiring  and  delightful. 
He  was  then  a  very  handsome  man,  with  the 
most  eager  and  ardent  manner,  alternating  with 
deep  absorption,  and  he  gave  beyond  all  others 
the  effect  of  original  and  creative  genius.  We 
studied,  by  an  added  stroke  of  good  luck,  his 
"  Curves  and  Functions,"  which  was  just  pass 
ing  through  the  press,  and  the  successive  parts 
of  which  were  bound  up  for  our  use.  This  in 
creased  the  charm ;  it  seemed  like  mathematics 
in  the  process  of  construction.  I  was  already 
old  enough  to  appreciate  the  wonderful  compact 
ness  and  close  reasoning  of  these  volumes,  and 
to  enter  with  eager  zest  into  filling  the  inter 
mediate  gaps  afforded  by  the  long  steps  often 
taken  from  one  equation  to  another.  Dr.  Bow- 
ditch,  the  translator  of  Laplace's  "  M'ecanique 
Celeste,"  used  to  say  that  whenever  he  came  to 
one  of  Laplace's  "Whence  it  plainly  appears," 
he  was  in  for  an  hour  or  two  of  toil  in  order  to 
make  this  exceeding  plainness  visible.  It  was 
often  so  with  Peirce's  books,  but  this  enhanced 
the  pleasure  of  the  chase.  He  himself  took 


A   CHILD   OF   THE   COLLEGE  51 

part  in  it :  a  thought  would  sometimes  flash 
into  his  mind,  and  he  would  begin  to  work  it 
out  on  the  blackboard  before  our  eyes ;  for 
getting  our  very  existence,  he  would  labor 
away  with  the  chalk,  writing  out  with  light 
ning  rapidity  a  series  of  equations,  smaller 
and  smaller,  chasing  his  scientific  prey  down 
into  the  utmost  right-hand  corner  of  the  black 
board,  and  finally  turning  to  us  with  a  sigh 
when  the  pursuit  was  ended.  Again  was  the 
science  of  mathematics  being  created  before 
our  very  eyes  ;  it  was  like  being  present  at  the 
first  discoveries  of  some  old  Greek  or  Arabian 
geometrician.  Peirce  had  also  the  delightful 
quality  of  being  especially  interested  in  all  of 
this  his  first  voluntary  class,  and  indeed  of 
greatly  overrating  their  merits.  When  I  left 
college,  he  gave  me  an  indorsement  which  took 
my  breath  away,  and  had  me  placed,  at  eigh 
teen,  on  the  examining  committee  in  his  de 
partment.  Years  after,  when  in  a  fair  way  to 
pass  some  time  in  jail  after  an  anti-slavery  riot, 
I  met  him,  and  said  that  I  had  reserved  that 
period  of  imprisonment  for  reviewing  mathe 
matics  and  reading  Laplace.  His  fine  eyes 
kindled,  and  he  replied,  "  In  that  case,  I  sin 
cerely  hope  that  you  may  go  there."  He  was 
then  vehemently  opposed  to  the  abolitionists, 
and  it  seemed  a  double  blessing  to  gag  one  of 


52  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

them  and  at  the  same  time  create  a  mathema 
tician.  The  indictment  was,  unluckily,  quashed, 
so  that  both  his  hopes  were  disappointed. 

Next  to  Peirce's  teaching  came,  without 
question,  both  in  stimulus  and  in  attractions, 
the  English  course  of  Professor  Edward  Tyr- 
rel  Channing.  Professor  Wendell  has  lately 
spoken  of  the  present  standard  of  training  in 
English  composition  at  Harvard  as  if  it  were 
quite  a  new  thing ;  but  with  some  opportunity 
of  observing  it,  I  have  never  had  reason  to 
think  it  any  new  departure  as  compared  with 
that  given  by  Professor  Channing  down  to 
1841  at  least.  The  evidence  would  seem  to  be 
that  between  that  period  and  1846,  when  Pro 
fessor  Child  graduated,  Professor  Channing  had 
in  some  way  lost  his  hold  upon  his  pupils  as 
his  years  advanced  ;  so  that  when  Professor 
Child  succeeded  to  the  chair,  in  1851,  it  was 
with  a  profound  distrust  in  the  whole  affair, 
insomuch  that  the  very  department  of  rhetoric 
and  oratory  came  near  being  wiped  out  of  exist 
ence,  and  was  saved  by  the  indignant  protest  of 
the  late  Charles  Francis  Adams. 

Certain  it  is  that  this  department  was,  in  my 
time,  by  far  the  most  potent  influence  in  de 
termining  college  rank,  and  therefore  in  stim 
ulating  ambition.  We  wrote  themes  every 
fortnight  and  forensics  once  a  month ;  and  as 


A  CHILD   OF  THE   COLLEGE  53 

these  were  marked  on  a  scale  of  48,  and  or 
dinary  recitations  on  a  scale  of  8,  the  impor 
tance  of  this  influence  may  be  seen.  Never 
in  my  life  have  I  had  to  meet  such  exacting 
criticism  on  anything  written  as  came  from 
Professor  Channing,  and  never  have  I  had  any 
praise  so  encouraging  as  his.  My  marks  were 
often  second  in  the  class,  sometimes  equaling 
—  O  day  of  glory !  —  those  of  my  classmate, 
Francis  Edward  Parker,  who  was  easily  first ; 
and  to  have  a  passage  read  to  the  class  for 
praise,  even  anonymously,  was  beyond  all  other 
laurels,  though  the  satisfaction  might  be  marred 
occasionally  by  the  knowledge  that  my  elder 
sister  had  greatly  helped  in  that  particular  sen 
tence.  When  it  is  considered  that  Channing's 
method  reared  most  of  the  well-known  writers 
whom  New  England  was  then  producing,  — 
that  it  was  he  who  trained  Emerson,  C.  F. 
Adams,  Hedge,  A.  P.  Peabody,  Felton,  Hillard, 
Winthrop,  Holmes,  Sumner,  Motley,  Phillips, 
Bowen,  Lovering,  Torrey,  Dana,  Lowell,  Tho- 
reau,  Hale,  Thomas  Hill,  Child,  Fitzedward 
Hall,  Lane,  and  Norton,  —  it  will  be  seen  that 
the  classic  portion  of  our  literature  came  largely 
into  existence  under  him.  He  fulfilled  the 
aspiration  attributed  to  Increase  Mather  when 
he  wished  to  become  president  of  Harvard  Col 
lege  :  to  mould  not  merely  the  teaching,  but 


54  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

the  teachers,  —  non  lapides  dolare,  sed  archi- 
tectos. 

The  controlling  influence  of  a  college  is 
determined,  of  course,  by  its  officers,  and  I 
have  never  felt  that  we  had  anything  in  respect 
of  which  we  could  complain.  The  experience 
lately  described  by  an  elder  contemporary  of 
discovering  that  he  personally  knew  more  than 
at  least  the  tutors  of  his  time  was  one  which 
never  troubled  me.  Two  of  the  four  tutors, 
Bowen  and  Lovering,  were  men  eminent  as 
scholars  from  youth  to  old  age ;  the  third, 
Jones  Very,  was  a  man  of  genius ;  and  the 
fourth,  Charles  Mason,  —  now  Judge  Mason,  of 
Fitchburg,  —  certainly  knew  incomparably  more 
of  Latin  than  I  did.  Of  the  older  professors, 
Felton  was  a  cultivated  Greek  scholar,  and 
Beck  brought  to  Latin  the  thoroughness  of  his 
German  drill.  I  need  not  say  what  it  was  to 
read  French  with  Longfellow;  and  it  is  plea 
sant  to  remember  that  once  —  during  one  of 
those  preposterous  little  rebellions  which  then 
occurred  every  two  or  three  years,  and  which 
have  wholly  disappeared  under  a  freer  disci 
pline  —  when  the  students  were  gathered  in 
the  college  yard,  and  had  refused  to  listen 
to  several  professors,  there  was  a  hush  when 
Longfellow  appeared,  and  my  classmate,  John 
Revere,  cried  out,  "We  will  hear  Professor 


A   CHILD   OF   THE   COLLEGE  55 

Longfellow,  for  he  always  treats  us  like  gentle 
men."  Longfellow  was  the  first,  I  think,  to 
introduce  the  prefix  "  Mr."  in  addressing  stu 
dents,  a  thing  now  almost  universal 

For  our  other  modern-language  teachers,  we 
had  Pietro  Bachi,  a  picturesque  Italian  refugee ; 
in  German,  Bernard  Roelker,  since  well  known 
as  a  lawyer  in  New  York  ;  and  we  had  that 
delightful  old  Francis  Sales,  whom  Lowell  has 
commemorated,  as  our  teacher  of  Spanish.  In 
him  we  had  a  man  who  might  have  stepped 
bodily  out  of  the  Gil  Bias  and  Don  Quixote 
he  taught.  We  never  knew  whether  he  was 
French  or  Spanish.  He  was  then  about  sixty- 
five,  and  his  robust  head  and  shoulders,  his 
pigtail  and  powdered  hair,  with  his  quaint  ac 
cent,  made  him  seem  the  survival  of  some  pic 
turesque  and  remote  age.  He  was,  moreover, 
extremely  indulgent,  gave  the  highest  marks 
for  recitations,  and  was  in  all  respects  a  favor 
ite.  A  classmate  who  sat  next  me,  George  Hay, 
took  delight  in  inflicting  upon  the  innocent 
old  man  the  most  incredible  or  old-fashioned 
English  oaths  as  equivalent  to  the  quaint  Span 
ish  expletives  ;  and  when  he  gravely  introduced 
"  Odds'  fish  "  or  "Gogzounds,"  Mr.  Sales  would 
look  bewildered  for  a  moment,  and  then  roll 
out  his  stentorian  "  Ha !  ha !  ha !  By  Jorge ! " 
in  a  way  to  add  still  further  to  the  list  of  unex- 


56  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

pected  phrases,  and  to  make  the  dusty  room  in 
Massachusetts  Hall  jubilant  for  that  day. 

President  Quincy  was  popular  among  us,  but 
lost  direct  weight  in  our  minds  through  his 
failure  of  memory  and  the  necessity  of  con 
stantly  telling  him  who  we  were.  Dr.  Walker 
we  admired  because  of  his  wise  and  sententious 
preaching,  and  his  reputation,  not  unjustified, 
of  peculiar  penetration  into  character.  Jared 
Sparks  lectured  on  history,  under  great  disad 
vantages  ;  and  I  have  always  been  gratified 
that  it  was  from  him  —  a  man  accounted  unim 
aginative  —  that  for  the  first  time  the  thought 
was  suggested  to  us  of  the  need  of  imagina 
tion  to  an  historian,  not  for  the  purpose  of 
invention,  but  for  re-creating  a  given  period 
and  shaping  it  in  the  representation.  Dr.  Har 
ris,  the  librarian  and  naturalist,  was  always 
a  delightful  teacher  and  friend,  and  I  espe 
cially  enjoyed  attendance  on  his  private  class  in 
entomology,  in  the  evening,  for  which  we  got 
no  college  credits.  Sometimes  we  took  walks 
with  him,  or  brought  him  new  plants  or  but 
terflies.  I  was  secretary  of  the  college  Nat 
ural  History  Society  for  a  time,  and  in  looking 
back  on  the  various  reports  written  by  me  for 
its  meetings,  it  is  interesting  to  see  that  this 
wholly  voluntary  work  had  a  freshness  and 
vigor  beyond  what  I  can  now  trace  in  any  of 


A   CHILD   OF   THE   COLLEGE  57 

the  "  themes "  of  which  Professor  Channing 
thought  so  well.  There  is  no  greater  mark  of 
progress  in  the  university  than  the  expansion 
of  its  electivcs  to  include  the  natural  sciences. 
My  own  omnivorousness  in  study  was  so  great 
that  I  did  not  suffer  very  much  from  our  re 
stricted  curriculum  ;  but  there  were  young  men 
in  my  time  who  would  have  graduated  in  these 
later  days  with  highest  honors  in  some  depart 
ment  of  physics  or  biology,  but  who  were  then 
at  the  very  foot  of  the  class,  and  lost  for  life 
the  advantage  of  early  training  in  the  studies 
they  loved.  Akin  to  this  modern  gain  and 
equally  unquestionable  is  the  advantage  now 
enjoyed  in  the  way  of  original  research.  Every 
year  young  men  of  my  acquaintance  come  to 
me  for  consultation  about  some  thesis  they  are 
preparing  in  history  or  literature,  and  they  little 
know  the  envy  with  which  they  inspire  their 
adviser ;  that  they  should  be  spared  from  the 
old  routine  to  investigate  anything  for  them 
selves  seems  such  a  happiness. 

There  is  not  the  slightest  doubt  in  my  mind, 
as  an  extra-collegiate  observer,  of  the  vast  im 
provement  made  by  the  elective  system ;  and  I 
should  like  to  see  it  extended  yet  more  widely, 
so  as  to  annul  absolutely  all  distinction  in  grade 
between  "academic  "  and  "scientific  "  courses. 
The  day  of  universal  scholarship,  when  Plutarch 


58  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

or  Bacon  could  go  the  round  of  knowledge  and 
label  every  item,  is  as  extinct  as  the  saurian 
epoch.  The  world  is  simply  too  large.  The 
most  enthusiastic  scholar  must  forego  ten  times 
as  many  paths  as  he  can  pursue,  and  must  re 
sign  himself  to  be  a  specialist.  It  is  inevitable, 
but  it  has  obvious  disadvantages.  The  last  of 
the  old-fashioned  Cambridge  scholars  of  whom 
one  could  ask  a  miscellaneous  question,  with 
prospect  of  answer,  died  with  the  late  Professor 
Torrey.  I  now  know  that  I  can  make  no  in 
quiry  so  difficult  but  there  is  probably  some 
man  in  Cambridge  who  can  answer  it ;  yet  it 
may  take  a  week  of  investigation  to  ascertain 
just  who  that  man  is.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  things  which  these  wise  men  do  not  know 
are  constantly  surprising,  at  least  to  a  survivor 
of  the  less  specializing  period.  I  have  had  a 
professor  of  political  economy  stop  me  in  the 
street  to  ask  who  Charles  Brockden  Brown 
was ;  and  when  I  suggested  to  a  senior  student 
who  was  seeking  a  lecturer  for  some  society 
that  he  might  ask  John  Fiske,  he  replied  that 
he  had  never  heard  his  name.  Now,  I  knew 
all  about  Charles  Brockden  Brown  before  I  was 
twelve  years  old,  from  Sparks's  "American  Bio 
graphy,"  and  it  was  not  easy  to  see  how  any  one 
could  read  the  newspapers,  even  three  or  four 
years  ago,  and  not  be  familiar  with  the  name  of 


A   CHILD   OF   THE   COLLEGE  59 

John  Fiske.  Yet  this  specialization  extends, 
in  truth,  to  all  classes  of  the  community.  A 
Boston  lawyer,  the  other  day,  told  a  friend 
of  mine  that,  in  his  opinion,  the  Harvard  pro 
fessors  were  less  eminent  than  formerly.  My 
friend  replied  with  truth  that  the  only  differ 
ence  was  that  they  were  less  likely  to  be  all- 
round  men,  known  to  everybody  ;  but  that  the 
teachers  of  to-day  were  more  likely  to  be  emi 
nent  in  some  particular  department,  in  which 
they  usually  knew  far  more  than  their  prede 
cessors.  "  There  is,  for  instance,"  he  said, 
"  Professor  Farlow,  who  has  an  international 
reputation  as  an  authority  in  cryptogamic  bot 
any."  "  I  never  even  heard  of  him,"  said  the 
lawyer,  "  nor  of  cryptogamic  botany,  either." 

The  same  change  is  apparent  in  the  vary 
ing  standards  of  athletic  exercise.  To  those 
who  loved,  as  I  did,  the  old-time  football, — 
the  very  thud  of  the  ball,  the  scent  of  bruised 
grass,  the  mighty  rush  of  a  hundred  men,  the 
swift  and  cool  defense,  —  there  is  something 
insufficient  in  the  presence  of  a  whole  univer 
sity  sitting  and  shivering  in  the  chill  wind 
around  an  arena  where  a  few  picked  gladiators 
push  and  wrestle ;  while  those  who  know  every 
point  of  the  new  contest  feel  a  natural  con 
tempt  for  the  crudities  of  the  old.  So  those 
who  now  regard  with  surprise,  or  even  lift  with 


60  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

irreverence,  the  heavy  three-cornered  bats  and 
large  balls  of  the  game  we  called  cricket  —  the 
very  implements  used  by  my  own  class  are 
deposited  at  the  Hemenway  Gymnasium  —  do 
not  know  that  their  comments  are  like  those  of 
Saladin  on  the  heavy  sword  of  King  Richard, 
which  ponderous  weapon,  after  all,  did  good 
service  in  its  day.  The  joy  of  athletic  exercises 
is  a  part  of  the  youth  to  which  they  belong, 
and  does  not  depend  upon  the  advance  of  sci 
ence  ;  nor  is  the  admiration  of  their  heroes  a 
matter  of  to-day  only.  I  never  saw  the  late 
Charles  Franklin  Shimmin,  of  Boston,  up  to 
his  dying  day,  that  I  did  not  recall  the  thrill 
of  admiration  for  his  unequaled  "rushes"  on 
the  football  field ;  and  when  we  casually  met, 
we  always  talked  about  them.  Of  the  two  best 
bowlers  in  my  class,  the  one,  Charles  Sedg- 
wick,  was  at  the  head  of  the  class  in  scholar 
ship,  and  the  other,  Eben  William  Rollins,  was 
far  down  in  the  rank  list,  but  they  were  equally 
our  heroes  at  the  cricketing  hour.  The  change 
chiefly  perceptible  to  me  to-day  is  that  whereas 
we  were  proud  of  Sedgwick's  scholarship  as 
well  as  of  his  bowling,  it  is  likely  that,  in  the 
present  intense  absorption  in  what  may  be 
called  vicarious  athletics,  any  amount  of  intel 
lectual  eminence  would  count  but  as  the  dust 
on  the  fly-wheel.  In  this  respect  we  go  a  little 


A  CHILD   OF  THE   COLLEGE  61 

further  just  now,  I  fancy,  than  our  English 
kinsfolk.  It  is  a  rare  thing  in  our  American 
Cambridge  to  hear  of  any  student  as  being 
admired  for  his  scholarship ;  but  when  I  was 
taken,  twenty  years  ago,  to  see  the  intercolle 
giate  races  at  the  older  Cambridge,  my  friends 
were  as  careful  to  point  out  the  men  who  were 
"great  swells"  in  chemistry  or  in  Greek  as  to 
call  my  attention  to  "  the  celebrated  stroke, 
Goldie." 

The  class  to  which  I  belonged  —  the  class  of 
1841  — was  compact  and  tolerably  well  united, 
though  small.  It  had  perhaps  more  than  the 
usual  share  of  class  feeling,  which  probably 
dated  from  the  time  when  we  had  the  rare 
experience  of  defeating  the  sophomores  at  the 
opening  game  of  football  There  was  an  im 
pression  that  the  Faculty  were  rather  afraid  of 
us,  a  view  which  would  probably  have  much 
astonished  those  worthy  gentlemen  had  it  ever 
reached  their  ears.  The  strongest  impression 
which  is  conveyed  by  looking  back  on  our  num 
ber  collectively,  after  a  half  century's  lapse,  is 
that  of  the  utter  impossibility  of  casting  in 
advance  the  horoscope  of  a  whole  set  of  young 
men.  The  class  numbered  several  who  after 
wards  won  distinction  in  different  walks  in  life ; 
and  while  the  actual  careers  of  some  might 
have  been  predicted,  there  were  other  lives 


62  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

which  could  not  possibly  have  been  anticipated 
by  any  of  us.  It  required  no  great  foresight  to 
guess  that  Edward  Clarke  and  Francis  Minot 
would  be  physicians,  and  even  eminent  ones  ; 
that  Rufus  Woodward,  of  Worcester,  would  also 
be  a  physician,  and  a  naturalist  besides  ;  that 
Thomas  Church  Haskell  Smith,  of  Ohio,  who 
was  universally  known  among  us  as  "  Captain 
Smith,"  and  was  the  natural  leader  of  the 
class,  in  case  of  civil  war  would  become  Major- 
General  Smith,  and  chief  of  staff  in  the  Army 
of  the  Potomac.  Wickham  Hoffman,  of  New 
York,  showed  in  college  the  same  steadfast  and 
manly  qualities  which  made  him  also  prominent 
during  the  war  as  a  staff  officer  at  New  Orleans, 
and  afterwards  as  secretary  of  the  American 
legation  during  the  siege  of  Paris.  Other  in 
stances  might  be  cited  ;  but,  on  the  other  hand, 
our  class  produced  three  men,  all  well  known 
in  later  life,  whose  precise  paths  were  such  as 
no  one  of  the  class  could  ever  by  any  possibility 
have  guessed.  Frank  Parker,  our  first  scholar, 
might  naturally,  we  should  all  have  said,  reach 
the  Supreme  Bench  in  rapid  strides ;  our  am 
bition  for  him  was  unbounded ;  but  that  he 
should,  instead  of  this,  become  the  greatest 
business  lawyer  in  Boston,  that  he  should  have 
charge  of  vast  estates,  that  he  should  die  rich, 
that  his  pall-bearers  should  be  bank  presidents 


A  CHILD   OF   THE   COLLEGE  63 

and  millionaires,  this  was  something  that  no  one 
could  have  credited  in  advance.  He  had  to  be 
very  economical  in  college,  as  had  most  of  us, 
—  he  could  go  without  what  he  wanted,  —  but 
certainly  I  never  surmised  in  him  any  peculiar 
gift  for  the  especially  judicious  investment  of  a 
half  dollar.  It  is  a  curious  illustration  of  what 
it  is  now  the  fashion  to  call  "heredity"  that 
when  this  same  remark  was  made  to  the  late 
Dr.  A.  P.  Peabody,  who  had  been  Parker's  pas 
tor,  he  replied  that  it  was  perfectly  true  so  far 
as  it  went,  but  that  any  one  who  had  known 
Parker's  father  would  have  comprehended  the 
whole  affair.  The  latter,  he  said,  although  a 
clergyman,  was  the  business  adviser  of  half  the 
men  in  his  parish. 

In  another  instance,  which  was  yet  more  re 
markable,  I  know  of  no  such  explanation.  Not 
a  classmate  of  Henry  Fowle  Durant's  would 
ever  have  dreamed  of  the  two  achievements 
which  have  probably  secured  for  his  name  a 
longer  remembrance  than  will  be  awarded  to 
any  other  member  of  the  class  ;  no  one  would 
have  deemed  it  possible  that  he  would  make 
a  fortune  by  the  practice  of  criminal  law,  and 
then  devote  it  to  founding  a  woman's  college. 
He  lived  out  of  the  college  yard,  was  little 
known  in  the  class,  was  to  all  appearances  in 
dolent  or  without  concentration  —  one  of  the 


64  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

men  whose  favorite  literature  lies  in  old  English 
plays.  His  very  name  was  not  that  by  which 
he  afterwards  became  noted  ;  it  being  originally 
Henry  Welles  Smith,  and  being  changed  subse 
quently  to  gratify  a  relative  who  was  also  his 
benefactor. 

Stranger  than  even  this  transformation  of 
name  and  career  was  the  third  bit  of  the  unex 
pected.  The  only  member  of  the  class  who 
ever  landed  in  the  state's  prison  was  precisely 
and  unequivocally  the  most  dignified  and  re 
spectable  man  we  mustered,  —  a  man  abso 
lutely  stainless  as  we  knew  him,  whose  whole 
aspect  and  bearing  carried  irresistible  weight, 
and  who  was  chosen  by  acclamation  as  the 
treasurer  of  our  class  fund.  In  truth,  it  was 
his  face  and  manner  that  were  his  ruin  ;  he  was 
a  lawyer  and  had  charge  of  estates ;  trustful 
widows  and  orphans  thronged  round  him  and 
believed  in  him  up  to  the  moment  the  prison 
doors  opened  to  receive  him ;  he  could  no 
more  resist  such  perilous  confidence  than 
could  Shakespeare's  Autolycus,  and  might  say 
with  him,  "  If  I  had  a  mind  to  be  honest,  I  see 
Fortune  would  not  suffer  me." 

My  only  really  intimate  friend  in  the  class 
was  Parker,  already  named,  who,  although  two 
years  older  than  myself,  and  of  more  staidness 
of  temperament  and  maturity  of  character,  had 


A   CHILD   OF  THE   COLLEGE  65 

great  influence  over  me,  and  was  wonderfully 
patient  with  my  often  serious  errors.  I  fre 
quently  spent  nights  at  his  room,  and  we  had 
few  secrets  from  each  other.  All  this  was  in 
a  certain  way  creditable  to  us  both,  —  though 
more  so  to  him,  in  proportion  as  he  was  the 
superior,  —  inasmuch  as  it  was  a  period  when 
the  ambition  for  college  rank  was  intensely 
strong,  and  we  were  running  neck  and  neck 
for  the  first  place,  through  the  time  of  our 
greatest  intimacy.  He  was  the  better  writer, 
reasoner,  and  classicist ;  while  I  was  fond  of 
mathematics,  which  he  hated,  and  was  more 
successful  than  he  in  modern  languages.  Later, 
I  discovered  that  we  had  been  extremely  close 
together  in  rank,  most  of  the  time,  I  sometimes 
passing  him ;  and  that  he  came  out  first  by 
only  some  thirty  or  forty  marks  among  many 
thousands.  It  was  the  only  fitting  conclu 
sion  ;  and  as  we  were  greatly  separated,  in  ma- 
turer  life,  by  his  conservative  and  my  radical 
tendencies,  I  rejoice  to  record  this  tribute  to 
his  memory.  He  had,  even  while  in  college,  a 
certain  cynicism,  which  was  later  very  much 
developed,  and  rather  marred  his  popularity ; 
but  his  influence  on  us  all  was  of  the  greatest 
value,  as  it  was  afterwards  in  the  whole  com 
munity  where  he  lived. 

I  formed  in  college  two   other  friendships, 


66  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

outside  my  own  class,  both  with  men  who  sub 
sequently  rendered  real  service  to  literature 
and  art.  One  was  the  late  Charles  Callahan 
Perkins,  who  became  the  author  of  works  on 
the  Tuscan  and  Italian  sculptors,  and  was 
practically  the  founder  of  the  Normal  Art 
School  in  Boston,  and  of  the  whole  system  of 
art  instruction  in  the  public  schools  of  Mas 
sachusetts.  He  was  my  room-mate  during  the 
senior  year,  and  a  most  attractive  person ;  hand 
some,  refined,  manly,  without  brilliant  gifts, 
but  with  the  most  cultivated  tastes  and  —  a 
convenience  quite  rare  among  us  —  a  liberal 
income.  He  was  one  of  the  few  instances  I 
have  known  of  a  man's  being  really  helped 
and  enlarged  in  his  career  by  the  possession  of 
wealth  —  or  what  then  passed  for  wealth  —  in 
youth.  The  other  companion,  who  did  more 
for  my  literary  tastes  than  all  other  friends, 
was  the  late  Levi  Lincoln  Thaxter,  who  in 
after-life  helped  more  than  any  one  to  make 
Browning  and  Fitzgerald  known  in  this  coun 
try,  —  they  being  more  widely  read  here  in 
each  case,  for  a  time,  than  in  their  own  land. 
This  was  the  more  remarkable  as  Thaxter 
never  saw  either  of  them,  although  he  corre 
sponded  with  Browning,  who  also  wrote  the 
inscription  for  his  grave.  Thaxter  was  about 
my  age,  though  he  was,  like  Perkins,  two  years 


A   CHILD   OF  THE   COLLEGE  67 

younger  in  college  ;  he  was  not  a  high  scholar, 
but  he  was  an  ardent  student  of  literature,  and 
came  much  under  the  influence  of  his  cousin, 
Maria  White,  and  of  Lowell,  her  betrothed. 
Thaxter  first  led  me  to  Emerson  and  to  Haz- 
litt ;  the  latter  being  for  both  of  us  a  tempo 
rary  and  the  former  a  lifelong  source  of  influ 
ence.  We  were  both  lovers  of  Longfellow, 
also,  and  used  to  sit  at  the  open  window  every 
New  Year's  Eve  and  read  aloud  his  "  Midnight 
Mass  to  the  Dying  Year."  Thaxter  was  an  en 
thusiastic  naturalist,  which  was  another  bond 
of  union,  and  he  bequeathed  this  taste  to  his 
youngest  son,  now  an  assistant  professor  of  bot 
any  in  Harvard  University.  To  Thaxter  I  owe, 
finally,  the  great  privilege  of  borrowing  from 
Maria  White  the  first  thin  volumes  of  Tenny 
son's  poems,  which  seemed  to  us,  as  was  once 
said  of  Keats,  to  "  double  the  value  of  words ;" 
and  we  both  became,  a  few  years  later,  sub 
scribers  to  the  original  yellow-covered  issue  of 
Browning's  "  Bells  and  Pomegranates."  Thax- 
ter's  personal  modesty  and  reticence,  and  the 
later  fame  of  his  poet-wife,  Celia,  have  obscured 
him  to  the  world  ;  but  he  was  one  of  the  most 
loyal  and  high-minded  of  men. 

At  my  graduation  I  was  four  months  short 
of  eighteen,  and  my  purpose  was  to  teach  for  a 
few  years,  and  then  to  study  law.  This  early 


68  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

maturity  had,  however,  one  obvious  advantage : 
that  it  would  plainly  give  me  more  time  to  turn 
round,  to  pursue  general  study,  and,  if  need  be, 
to  revise  my  choice  of  a  pursuit.  I  ultimately 
used  the  interval  for  just  these  purposes,  and 
was  so  far  a  gainer.  In  all  other  respects  my 
youthfulness  was/  a  great  disadvantage,  and  I 
have  often  dissuaded  others  from  following  my 
example  in  entering  college  too  young.  If 
they  disregard  the  remonstrance,  as  is  usually 
the  case,  great  patience  and  charity  are  due 
them.  The  reason  for  this  is  that  precocity 
scarcely  ever  extends  through  all  the  faculties 
at  once,  and  those  who  are  older  than  their 
years  in  some  respects  are  almost  always 
younger  in  others,  —  this  being  nature's  way  of 
restoring  the  balance.  Even  if  intellect  and 
body  are  alike  precocious,  the  judgment  and 
the  moral  sense  may  remain  weak  and  imma 
ture.  Development  in  other  respects,  there 
fore,  creates  false  expectations  and  brings  un 
foreseen  temptations  of  its  own.  This  was,  at 
any  rate,  the  result  in  my  case,  although  it 
took  me  several  years  to  find  it  out.  The 
experience  of  those  years  demands,  however,  a 
chapter  by  itself. 


Ill 

THE    PERIOD    OF   THE    NEWNESS 

"  Bliss  was  it  in  that  dawn  to  be  alive, 
But  to  be  young  was  very  heaven." 

WORDSWORTH,  The  Prelude,  Book  X I. 

THE  above  was  the  high-sounding  name 
which  was  claimed  for  their  own  time  by  the 
youths  and  maidens  who,  under  the  guidance 
of  Emerson,  Parker,  and  others,  took  a  share  in 
the  seething  epoch  sometimes  called  vaguely 
Transcendentalism.  But  as  these  chapters  are 
to  be  mainly  autobiographic,  it  is  well  to  state 
with  just  what  outfit  I  left  college  in  1841.  I 
had  a  rather  shallow  reading  knowledge  of  six 
languages,  English,  French,  Spanish,  Italian, 
Latin,  and  Greek,  and  had  been  brought  in 
contact  with  some  of  the  best  books  in  each  of 
these  tongues.  I  may  here  add  that  I  picked 
up  at  a  later  period  German,  Portuguese,  and 
Hebrew,  with  a  little  Swedish  ;  and  that  I 
hope  to  live  long  enough  to  learn  at  least  the 
alphabet  in  Russian.  Then  I  had  acquired 
enough  of  the  higher  mathematics  to  have  a 
pupil  or  two  in  that  branch  ;  something  of  the 


70  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

forms  of  logic  and  of  Locke's  philosophy  with 
the  criticisms  of  the  French  eclectics  upon  it ;  a 
smattering  of  history  and  political  economy  ; 
some  crude  acquaintance  with  field  natural 
history  ;  some  practice  in  writing  and  debating ; 
a  passion  for  poetry  and  imaginative  literature ; 
a  voracious  desire  for  all  knowledge  and  all 
action  ;  and  an  amount  of  self-confidence  which 
has  now,  after  more  than  half  a  century,  sadly 
diminished.  It  will  be  seen  that  this  was  an 
outfit  more  varied  than  graduates  of  the  present 
day  are  apt  to  possess,  but  that  it  was  also 
more  superficial ;  their  knowledge  of  what  they 
know  being  often  far  more  advanced  as  well 
as  more  solidly  grounded  than  was  mine.  No 
matter  ;  I  was  a  happy  boy,  ankle-deep  in  a  yet 
unfathomed  sea. 

I  had  two  things  in  addition  not  set  down 
in  the  college  curriculum,  but  of  the  utmost 
influence  on  my  future  career.  One  of  these 
has  always  been  to  me  somewhat  inexplicable. 
Cambridge  was  then  a  place  of  distinctly  graded 
society,  —  more  so,  probably,  than  it  is  now. 
Lowell  has  admirably  described  the  superb 
way  in  which  old  Royal  Morse,  the  village  con 
stable  and  auctioneer,  varied  the  courtesy  of  his 
salutation  according  to  the  social  position  of 
his  acquaintance.  I  can  remember  no  conver 
sation  around  me  looking  toward  the  essential 


THE   PERIOD   OF   THE   NEWNESS       71 

equality  of  the  human  race,  except  as  it  was 
found  in  the  pleased  curiosity  with  which  my 
elder  brothers  noted  the  fact  that  the  Presi 
dent's  man-servant,  who  waited  at  table  during 
his  dinner  parties,  became  on  the  muster  field 
colonel  of  the  militia  regiment,  and  as  such  gave 
orders  to  Major  Quincy,  there  his  subordinate, 
but  at  other  times  his  employer.  In  each  pro 
fessor's  family  there  was  apt  to  be  a  country 
boy  "  living  out,"  "  doing  chores  "  and  attending 
school ;  these  boys  often  rose  to  influence  and 
position  in  later  life,  and  their  children  or  de 
scendants  are  now  professors  in  the  university 
and  leaders  in  Cambridge  society.  The  "town 
school "  was  distinctly  a  grade  school ;  I  had 
never  entered  it ;  did  not  play  much  with  the 
"town  boys,"  and  was  rather  afraid  of  them. 
Yet  it  must  have  been  that  there  was  left  over 
from  the  American  Revolution  something  of 
the  popular  feeling  then  inspired,  for  without 
aid  or  guidance  I  was  democratic  in  impulse ; 
longed  to  know  something  of  all  sorts  and  con 
ditions  of  men,  and  had  a  distinct  feeling  that  I 
should  like  to  be,  for  a  year  or  two,  a  mechanic 
of  some  kind  —  a  carpenter  or  blacksmith  — 
in  order  to  place  myself  in  sympathy  with  all. 
The  nearest  I  ever  came  to  this  was  in  making 
some  excursions  with  an  elder  brother  who,  as 
engineer,  was  laying  out  the  track  of  the  Old 


72  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

Colony  Railroad,  and  who  took  me  as  "hind 
chain  man  "  at  a  dollar  a  day.  I  still  recall 
with  delight  the  sense  of  honest  industry,  the 
tramping  through  the  woods,  and  the  occasional 
dinners  at  farmhouses.  It  was  at  one  of  these 
festivities  that,  when  my  brother  had  eaten  one 
piece  of  mince  pie  but  declined  a  second  help 
ing,  our  host  remarked  with  hospitable  dignity, 
"  Consult  your  feelings,  sir,  about  the  meat 
pie." 

Another  most  important  change  was  passing 
in  me  at  about  this  time ;  the  sudden  develop 
ment  of  social  aptitudes  hitherto  dormant.  As 
an  overgrown  boy — for  I  was  six  feet  tall  at 
fourteen  —  I  had  experienced  all  the  agonies 
of  bashfulness  in  the  society  of  the  other  sex, 
though  greatly  attracted  to  it.  I  find  it  diffi 
cult  to  convince  my  associates  of  later  years 
that  I  then  habitually  sat  mute  while  others 
chattered.  A  word  or  two  of  remonstrance 
from  my  mother  had  in  a  single  day  corrected 
this,  during  my  senior  year,  so  far  as  the  fam 
ily  table  was  concerned  ;  and  this  emboldened 
me  to  try  the  experiment  on  a  wider  field.  I 
said  to  myself,  thinking  of  other  young  men 
who  made  themselves  quite  agreeable,  "These 
youths  are  not  your  superiors, — perhaps,  in  the 
jecitation  -  room  or  on  the  playground,  hardly 
your  equals;  why  not  cope  with  them  else- 


THE   PERIOD   OF  THE   NEWNESS       73 

where  ? "  Thus  influenced,  I  conquered  myself 
in  a  single  evening  and  lost  my  shyness  for 
ever.  The  process  was  unique,  so  far  as  I 
know,  and  I  have  often  recommended  it  to  shy 
young  men.  Being  invited  to  a  small  party,  I 
considered  beforehand  what  young  ladies  would 
probably  be  there.  With  each  one  I  had,  of 
course,  something  in  common,  —  kinship,  or 
neighborhood,  or  favorite  pursuit.  This  would 
do,  I  reasoned,  for  a  starting-point ;  so  I  put 
down  on  a  small  sheet  of  paper  what  I  would 
say  to  each,  if  I  happened  to  be  near  her.  It 
worked  like  a  charm ;  I  found  myself  chatting 
away,  the  whole  evening,  and  heard  the  next 
day  that  everybody  was  surprised  at  the  trans 
formation.  I  have  to  this  day  the  little  bit 
of  magic  paper,  on  which  I  afterwards  un 
derscored,  before  sleeping,  the  points  actually 
used. 

It  set  me  free ;  after  this  I  went  often  to 
tolerably  large  parties  in  Cambridge  and  Boston, 
in  the  latter  case  under  guidance  of  my  brother 
Waldo,  who  had  now  graduated  from  the  Har 
vard  Washington  Corps  into  the  Boston  Cadets, 
and  was  an  excellent  social  pilot.  I  saw  the 
really  agreeable  manners  which  then  prevailed 
in  the  little  city,  and  cannot  easily  be  convinced 
that  there  are  now  in  the  field  any  youths  at 
once  so  manly  and  so  elegant  as  were  the  two 


74  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

especial  leaders  among  the  beaux  of  that  day, 
John  Lothrop  Motley  and  his  brother-in-law, 
John  Lewis  Stackpole.  It  did  not  surprise  me 
to  read  in  later  days  that  the  former  was  habit 
ually  addressed  as  "  Milord,"  to  a  degree  that 
vexed  him,  by  waiters  in  Continental  hotels. 
Such  leaders  were  doubtless  good  social  mod 
els,  as  was  also  the  case  with  my  brother ;  but 
I  had  more  continuous  influences  in  the  friend 
ship  of  two  fair  girls,  both  of  whom  were  frank, 
truthful,  and  attractive.  One  of  them — Maria 
Fay  of  convent  fame,  already  mentioned  —  was 
a  little  older  than  myself,  while  the  other,  just 
my  own  age,  Mary  Devens,  was  the  younger 
sister  of  Charles  Devens,  afterwards  eminent  in 
war  and  peace.  She  died  young,  but  I  shall  al 
ways  be  grateful  for  the  good  she  unconsciously 
did  me ;  and  I  had  with  both  the  kind  of  cor 
dial  friendship,  without  a  trace  of  love-making, 
yet  tinged  with  refined  sentiment,  which  is 
for  every  young  man  a  most  fortunate  school. 
They  counseled  and  reprimanded  and  laughed 
at  me,  when  needful,  in  a  way  that  I  should  not 
have  tolerated  from  boys  at  that  time,  nor  yet 
from  my  own  sisters,  wise  and  judicious  though 
these  were.  Added  to  all  this  was  a  fortunate 
visit,  during  my  last  year  in  college,  to  some 
cousins  on  a  Virginia  plantation,  where  my 
uncle,  Major  Storrow,  had  married  into  the 


THE   PERIOD   OF   THE   NEWNESS       75 

Carter  family,  and  where  I  experienced  the  hos 
pitality  and  gracious  ways  of  Southern  life. 

A  potent  influence  was  also  preparing  for  me 
in  Cambridge  in  a  peculiarly  fascinating  circle 
of  young  people,  —  more  gifted,  I  cannot  help 
thinking,  than  any  later  coterie  of  the  same 
kind,  —  which  seemed  to  group  itself  round 
James  Lowell  and  Maria  White,  his  betrothed, 
who  were  known  among  the  members  as  their 
"King  and  Queen."  They  called  themselves 
"The  Brothers  and  Sisters,"  being  mainly 
made  up  in  that  way :  the  Whites  of  Water- 
town  and  their  cousins  the  Thaxters ;  the 
Storys  from  Cambridge ;  the  Hales  and  the 
Tuckermans  from  Boston ;  the  Kings  from 
Salem,  and  others.  They  had  an  immense  and 
hilarious  intimacy,  rarely,  however,  for  some 
reason,  culminating  in  intermarriage  ;  they  read 
the  same  books,  and  had  perpetual  gatherings 
and  picnics,  their  main  headquarters  being  the 
large  colonial  house  of  the  White  family  in 
Watertown.  My  own  point  of  contact  with 
them  was  remote,  but  real ;  my  mother  had  re 
moved,  when  her  family  lessened,  to  a  smaller 
house  built  by  my  elder  brother,  and  belonging 
in  these  latter  days  to  Radcliffe  College.  This 
was  next  door  to  the  Fay  House  of  that  insti 
tution,  then  occupied  by  Judge  Fay.  And  as 
my  friend  Maria  Fay  was  a  cousin  of  some  of 


76  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

the  Brothers  and  Sisters,  they  made  the  house 
an  occasional  rendezvous ;  and  as  there  were 
attractive  younger  kindred  whom  I  chanced  to 
know,  I  was  able  at  least  to  look  through  the 
door  of  this  paradise  of  youth. 

Lowell's  first  volume  had  just  been  pub 
lished,  and  all  its  allusions  were  ground  of  ro 
mance  for  us  all ;  indeed,  he  and  his  betrothed 
were  to  me,  as  they  seemed  to  be  for  those 
of  their  circle,  a  modernized  Petrarch  and 
Laura  or  even  Dante  and  Beatrice;  and  I 
watched  them  with  unselfish  reverence.  Their 
love-letters,  about  which  they  were  extremely 
frank,  were  passed  from  hand  to  hand,  and 
sometimes  reached  me  through  Thaxter.  I 
have  some  of  Maria  White's  ballads  in  her  own 
handwriting ;  and  I  still  know  by  heart  a  letter 
which  she  wrote  to  Thaxter,  about  the  delay 
in  her  marriage,  —  "  It  is  easy  enough  to  be 
married ;  the  newspaper  corners  show  us  that, 
every  day ;  but  to  live  and  to  be  happy  as  sim 
ple  King  and  Queen,  without  the  gifts  of  for 
tune,  this  is  a  triumph  that  suits  my  nature 
better."  Probably  all  the  atmosphere  around 
this  pair  of  lovers  had  a  touch  of  exaggeration, 
a  slight  greenhouse  aroma,  but  it  brought  a 
pure  and  ennobling  enthusiasm  ;  and  whenever 
I  was  fortunate  enough  to  hear  Maria  White 
sing  or  "  say  "  ballads  in  moonlight  evenings  it 


THE   PERIOD   OF  THE   NEWNESS       77 

seemed  as  if  I  were  in  Boccaccio's  Florentine 
gardens. 

If  this  circle  of  bright  young  people  was  not 
strictly  a  part  of  the  Transcendental  Move 
ment,  it  was  yet  born  of  "the  Newness." 
Lowell  and  Story,  indeed,  both  wrote  for  "  The 
Dial,"  and  Maria  White  had  belonged  to  Mar 
garet  Fuller's  classes.  There  was,  moreover, 
passing  through  the  whole  community  a  wave 
of  that  desire  for  a  freer  and  more  ideal  life 
which  made  Story  turn  aside  from  his  father's 
profession  to  sculpture,  and  made  Lowell  for 
sake  law  after  his  first  client.  It  was  the  time 
when  Emerson  wrote  to  Carlyle,  "  We  are  all 
a  little  wild  here  with  numberless  projects  of 
social  reform  ;  not  a  reading  man  but  has  a 
draft  of  a  new  community  in  his  waistcoat 
pocket."  I  myself  longed  at  times  to  cut  free 
from  prescribed  bondage,  and  not,  in  Lowell's 
later  phrase,  to  "  pay  so  much  of  life  for  a  liv 
ing  "  as  seemed  to  be  expected.  I  longed  anew, 
under  the  influence  of  George  Sand  and  of  Mrs. 
Child's  "  Letters  from  New  York,"  to  put  myself 
on  more  equal  terms  with  that  vast  army  of 
hand-workers  who  were  ignorant  of  much  that 
I  knew,  yet  could  do  so  much  that  I  could  not. 

Under  these  combined  motives  I  find  that  I 
carefully  made  out,  at  one  time,  a  project  of 
going  into  the  cultivation  of  peaches,  an  in- 


78  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

dustry  then  prevalent  in  New  England,  but 
now  practically  abandoned,  —  thus  securing 
freedom  from  study  and  thought  by  moderate 
labor  of  the  hands.  This  was  in  1843,  two 
years  before  Thoreau  tried  a  similar  project 
with  beans  at  Walden  Pond ;  and  also  before 
the  time  when  George  and  Burrill  Curtis  un 
dertook  to  be  farmers  at  Concord.  A  like 
course  was  actually  adopted  and  successfully 
pursued  through  life  by  another  Harvard  man 
a  few  years  older  than  myself,  the  late  Marston 
Watson,  of  Plymouth,  Massachusetts.  Such 
things  were  in  the  air,  and  even  those  who 
were  not  swerved  by  "  the  Newness  "  from  their 
intended  pursuits  were  often  greatly  modified 
as  to  the  way  in  which  these  were  undertaken  ; 
as  when  the  recognized  leader  of  a  certain  class 
of  the  Harvard  Law  School  abandoned,  from 
conscientious  scruples,  the  career  of  a  practicing 
lawyer,  and  spent  his  life  as  a  conveyancer. 

What  turned  me  away  from  the  study  of  the 
law  was  not  this  moral  scruple,  but  what  was 
doubtless  an  innate  preference,  strengthened 
by  the  influence  of  one  man  and  one  or  two 
books.  After  leaving  college  I  taught  for  six 
months  as  usher  in  the  boarding-school  at  Ja 
maica  Plain,  kept  by  Mr.  Stephen  Minot  Weld  ; 
and  then,  greatly  to  my  satisfaction,  became 
private  tutor  to  the  three  young  sons  of  my 


THE   PERIOD   OF   THE   NEWNESS       79 

cousin,  Stephen  Higginson  Perkins,  a  Boston 
merchant,  residing  in  a  pretty  cottage  which 
he  had  designed  for  himself  in  Brookline.  In 
him  I  encountered  the  most  attractive  man  I 
had  yet  met  and  the  one  who  was  most  to 
influence  me.  He  was  indeed  a  person  of 
unique  qualities  and  great  gifts ;  he  was  in  the 
prime  of  life,  handsome  and  refined,  a  widower, 
whose  modest  household  was  superintended  by 
a  maiden  sister ;  his  training  had  been  utterly 
unlike  my  regular  academical  career;  he  had 
been  sent  to  Germany  to  school,  under  the 
guidance  of  Edward  Everett,  then  to  the  East 
and  West  Indies  as  supercargo,  then  into  busi 
ness,  but  not  very  successfully  as  yet.  This 
pursuit  he  hated  and  disapproved ;  all  his  tastes 
were  for  art,  in  which  he  was  at  that  time  per 
haps  the  best  connoisseur  in  Boston,  and  he 
had  contrived  by  strict  economy  to  own  several 
good  paintings  which  he  bequeathed  later  to  the 
Boston  Art  Museum,  —  a  Reynolds,  a  Van  der 
Velde,  and  a  remarkable  oil  copy  of  the  Sistine 
Madonna  by  Moritz  Retzsch.  These  were  the 
first  fine  paintings  I  had  ever  seen,  except  the 
Copleys  then  in  the  Harvard  College  Library  ; 
and  his  society,  with  that  he  assembled  round 
him,  was  to  me  a  wholly  new  experience.  He 
disapproved  and  distrusted  all  classical  train 
ing,  and  was  indifferent  to  mathematics ;  but  he 


8o  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

had  read  largely  in  French  and  German  liter 
ature,  and  he  introduced  me  to  authors  of  per 
manent  interest,  such  as  Heine  and  Paul  Louis 
Courier.  He  was  also  in  a  state  of  social  revolt, 
enhanced  by  a  certain  shyness  and  by  deafness ; 
full  of  theories,  and  ready  to  encourage  all  inde 
pendent  thinking.  He  was  withal  affectionate 
and  faithful. 

I  was  to  teach  his  boys  four  hours  a  day,  — 
no  more ;  they  were  most  interesting,  though 
not  always  easy  to  manage.  I  was  young 
enough  to  take  a  ready  part  in  all  their  sports, 
and  we  often  had  school  in  the  woods  adjoin 
ing  the  house,  perhaps  sitting  in  large  trees 
and  interrupting  work  occasionally  to  watch  a 
weasel  gliding  over  a  rock  or  a  squirrel  in  the 
boughs.  I  took  the  boys  with  me  in  my  ram 
bles  and  it  was  a  happy  time.  Another  sister 
of  Stephen  Perkins's,  a  woman  of  great  per 
sonal  attractions,  kept  house  for  her  father,  who 
lived  near  by,  Mr.  Samuel  G.  Perkins,  younger 
brother  of  Colonel  Thomas  H.  Perkins,  then 
the  leading  merchant  of  Boston.  Mr.  Samuel 
Perkins  had  been  at  one  time  a  partner  of  my 
grandfather  and  had  married  his  daughter,  but 
had  retired,  not  very  successful,  and  was  one 
of  the  leading  horticulturists  near  Boston,  the 
then  famous  "  Boston  nectarine  "  being  a  fruit 
of  his  introducing.  His  wife,  Barbara  Higgin- 


THE   PERIOD   OF  THE   NEWNESS       81 

son,  my  aunt,  had  been  a  belle  in  her  youth, 
but  had  ripened  into  an  oddity,  and  lived  in 
Boston  during  the  winter  and  in  a  tiny  cot 
tage  at  Nahant  during  the  summer,  for  the 
professed  reason  that  the  barberry  blossoms  in 
the  Brookline  lanes  made  her  sneeze. 

The  summer  life  around  Boston  was  then  an 
affair  so  unlike  anything  now  to  be  found  in 
the  vicinity  as  to  seem  like  something  observed 
in  another  country  or  period  Socially  speak 
ing,  it  more  resembled  the  plantation  life  of  the 
South  or  the  ranch  life  of  the  West.  Many  of 
the  prosperous  people  lived  in  Boston  all  sum 
mer,  with  occasional  trips  to  Nahant  or  Sara 
toga  or  Ballston,  or  for  the  more  adventurous  a 
journey  by  stage  among  the  White  Mountains, 
encountering  rough  roads  and  still  rougher  tav 
erns.  But  there  existed  all  around  Boston,  and 
especially  in  Roxbury,  Brookline,  and  Milton, 
a  series  of  large  estates  with  ample  houses, 
all  occupied  by  people  connected  in  blood  or 
intimacy,  who  drove  about  and  exchanged  calls 
in  summer  afternoons.  Equipages  were  sim 
ple  ;  people  usually  drove  themselves ;  there 
were  no  liveries,  but  the  hospitality  was  pro 
fuse.  My  uncle  Perkins  was  a  poor  man  com 
pared  with  his  rich  brother  ;  there  was  a  theory 
that  his  beautiful  pears  and  nectarines  were  to 
be  a  source  of  profit,  but  I  fear  that  the  bal- 


82  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

ance-sheet,  if  perchance  there  ever  was  any, 
would  have  shown  otherwise.  No  matter,  he 
had  the  frank  outdoor  hospitality  of  a  retired 
East  India  merchant,  which  he  was ;  every 
afternoon,  at  a  certain  hour,  sherry  and  madeira 
were  set  out  on  the  sideboard  in  the  airy  parlor, 
with  pears,  peaches,  grapes,  nectarines,  straw 
berries  and  the  richest  cream,  and  we  knew 
that  visitors  would  arrive.  Cousins  and  friends 
came,  time-honored  acquaintances  of  the  head 
of  the  house,  eminent  public  men,  Mr.  Prescott 
the  historian,  or  Daniel  Webster  himself,  re 
ceived  like  a  king.  Never  did  I  feel  a  greater 
sense  of  an  honor  conferred  than  when  that 
regal  black-browed  man  once  selected  me  as 
the  honored  messenger  to  bring  more  cream 
for  his  chocolate. 

There  was  sometimes,  though  rarely,  a  little 
music ;  and  there  were  now  and  then  simple 
games  on  the  lawn,  —  battledore  or  grace- 
hoops, —  but  as  yet  croquet  and  tennis  and 
golf  were  not,  and  the  resources  were  limited. 
In  winter,  the  same  houses  were  the  scene  of 
family  parties  with  sleigh-riding  and  skating 
and  coasting ;  but  the  summer  life  was  simply 
a  series  of  outdoor  receptions,  from  house  to 
house.  It  must  be  noted  that  Brookline  was 
then,  as  now,  the  garden  suburb  of  Boston, 
beyond  all  others ;  the  claim  was  only  compara- 


THE   PERIOD   OF  THE   NEWNESS       83 

tive,  and  would  not  at  all  stand  the  test  of  Eng 
lish  gardening  or  even  of  our  modern  meth 
ods,  except  perhaps  in  the  fruit  produced.  I 
remember  that  Stephen  Perkins  once  took  an 
English  visitor,  newly  arrived,  to  drive  about 
the  region,  and  he  was  quite  ready  to  admire 
everything  he  saw,  though  not  quite  for  the 
reason  that  his  American  host  expected.  "It 
is  all  so  rough  and  wild  "  was  his  comment. 

Into  this  summer  life,  on  the  invitation  of 
my  cousin  Barbara  Channing,  who  spent  much 
time  in  Brookline,  there  occasionally  came  dele 
gations  of  youths  from  Brook  Farm,  then  flour 
ishing.  Among  these  were  George  and  Burrill 
Curtis,  and  Lamed,  with  Charles  Dana,  late 
editor  of  the  "  New  York  Sun  ;  "  all  presenta 
ble  and  agreeable,  but  the  first  three  peculiarly 
costumed.  It  was  then  very  common  for  young 
men  in  college  and  elsewhere  to  wear  what 
were  called  blouses,  — a  kind  of  hunter's  frock 
made  at  first  of  brown  holland  belted  at  the 
waist,  —  these  being  gradually  developed  into 
garments  of  gay-colored  chintz,  sometimes,  it 
was  said,  an  economical  transformation  of  their 
sisters'  skirts  or  petticoats.  All  the  young 
men  of  this  party  except  Dana  wore  these  gay 
garments  and  bore  on  their  heads  little  round 
and  visorless  caps  with  tassels.  Mr.  Perkins, 
whose  attire  was  always  defiantly  plain,  re- 


84  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

garded  these  vanities  with  ill-concealed  disap 
proval,  but  took  greatly  to  Dana,  who  dressed 
like  a  well-to-do  young  farmer  and  was  always 
handsome  and  manly.  My  uncle  declared  him 
to  be  full  of  sense  and  knowledge,  and  the 
others  to  be  nonsensical  creatures.  Dana  was 
indeed  the  best  all-round  man  at  Brook  Farm, 
—  a  good  teacher,  editor,  and  farmer,  —  but 
was  held  not  to  be  quite  so  zealous  or  unselfish 
for  the  faith  as  were  some  of  the  others.  It 
was  curious  that  when  their  public  meetings 
were  held  in  Boston,  he  was  their  most  effec 
tive  speaker,  while  I  cannot  remember  that 
George  William  Curtis,  afterwards  so  eloquent, 
ever  opened  his  lips  at  all. 

I  was  but  twice  at  Brook  Farm,  once  driving 
over  there  in  a  sleigh  during  a  snowstorm,  to 
convey  my  cousin  Barbara  to  a  fancy  ball  at 
"the  Community,"  as  it  was  usually  called, 
where  she  was  to  appear  in  a  pretty  Creole 
dress  made  of  madras  handkerchiefs  and  brought 
by  Stephen  Perkins  from  the  West  Indies. 
She  was  a  most  attractive  and  popular  person, 
and  was  enthusiastic  about  Brook  Farm,  where 
she  went  ofteix,  being  a  friend  of  Mrs.  Ripley, 
who  was  its  "leading  lady."  Again  I  once 
went  for  her  in  summer  and  stayed  for  an  hour, 
watching  the  various  interesting  figures,  includ 
ing  George  William  Curtis,  who  was  walking 


THE   PERIOD   OF  THE   NEWNESS       85 

about  in  shirtsleeves,  with  his  boots  over  his  trou 
sers,  yet  was  escorting  a  young  maiden  with 
that  elegant  grace  which  never  left  him.  It  was 
a  curious  fact  that  he,  who  was  afterwards 
so  eminent,  was  then  held  wholly  secondary  in 
interest  to  his  handsome  brother  Burrill,  whose 
Raphaelesque  face  won  all  hearts,  and  who 
afterwards  disappeared  from  view  in  England, 
surviving  only  in  memory  as  Our  Cousin  the 
Curate,  in  "  Prue  and  I."  But  if  I  did  not 
see  much  of  Brook  Farm  on  the  spot,  I  met  its 
members  frequently  at  the  series  of  exciting 
meetings  for  Social  Reform  in  Boston,  where 
the  battle  raged  high  between  Associationists 
and  Communists,  the  leader  of  the  latter  being 
John  A.  Collins.  Defenders  of  the  established 
order  also  took  part ;  one  of  the  best  of  the 
latter  being  Arthur  Pickering,  a  Boston  mer 
chant  ;  and  in  all  my  experience  I  have  never 
heard  a  speech  so  thrilling  and  effective  as  that 
in  which  Henry  Clapp,  then  a  young  radical 
mechanic,  answered  Pickering's  claim  that  indi 
viduality  was  better  promoted  by  the  existing 
method  of  competition.  Clapp  was  afterwards 
the  admired  leader  of  a  Bohemian  clique  in 
New  York  and  had  a  melancholy  career ;  but 
that  speech  did  more  than  anything  else  to 
make  me  at  least  a  halfway  socialist  for  life. 
The  Brook  Farm  people  were  also  to  be  met 


86  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

occasionally  at  Mrs.  Harrington's  confectionery 
shop  in  School  Street,  where  they  took  econo 
mical  refreshments;  and  still  oftener  at  Miss 
Elizabeth  Peabody's  foreign  bookstore  in  West 
Street,  which  was  a  part  of  the  educational  in 
fluences  of  the  period.  It  was  an  atom  of  a 
shop,  partly  devoted  to  the  homoeopathic  medi 
cines  of  her  father,  a  physician  ;  and  she  alone 
in  Boston,  I  think,  had  French  and  German 
books  for  sale.  There  I  made  further  acquaint 
ance  with  Cousin  and  Jouffroy,  with  Constant's 
"De  la  Religion"  and  Leroux'  "De  1'Human- 
ite,"  the  relics  of  the  French  Eclecticism,  then 
beginning  to  fade,  but  still  taught  in  colleges. 
There,  too,  were  Schubert's  "  Geschichte  der 
Seele "  and  many  of  the  German  balladists 
who  were  beginning  to  enthrall  me.  There  was 
also  Miss  Peabody  herself,  desultory,  dreamy, 
but  insatiable  in  her  love  for  knowledge  and  for 
helping  others  to  it.  James  Freeman  Clarke 
said  of  her  that  she  was  always  engaged  in  sup 
plying  some  want  that  had  first  to  be  created  ; 
it  might  be  Dr.  Kraitsir's  lectures  on  language, 
or  General  Bern's  historical  chart.  She  always 
preached  the  need,  but  never  accomplished  the 
supply  until  she  advocated  the  kindergarten ; 
there  she  caught  up  with  her  mission  and  came 
to  identify  herself  with  its  history.  She  lived 
to  be  very  old,  and  with  her  broad  benevolent 


THE   PERIOD   OF   THE   NEWNESS       87 

face  and  snowy  curls  was  known  to  many  as 
"The  Grandmother  of  Boston."  I  best  asso 
ciate  her  with  my  last  interview,  a  little  before 
her  death,  when  I  chanced  to  pick  her  out  of  a 
snowdrift  into  which  she  had  sunk  overwhelmed 
during  a  furious  snowsquall,  while  crossing  a 
street  in  Boston.  I  did  not  know  her  until  she 
had  scrambled  up  with  much  assistance,  and 
recognizing  me  at  once,  fastened  on  my  offered 
arm,  saying  breathlessly,  "  I  am  so  glad  to  see 
you.  I  have  been  wishing  to  talk  to  you  about 
Sarah  Winnemucca.  Now  Sarah  Winnemucca  " 
—  and  she  went  on  discoursing  as  peacefully 
about  a  maligned  Indian  prote"ge"e  as  if  she  were 
strolling  in  some  sequestered  moonlit  lane,  on 
a  summer  evening. 

I  have  said  that  the  influence  wrought  upon 
me  by  Brookline  life  was  largely  due  to  one 
man  and  one  or  two  writers.  The  writer  who 
took  possession  of  me,  after  Emerson,  was  the 
German  author,  Jean  Paul  Richter,  whose  me 
moirs  had  just  been  written  by  a  Brookline 
lady,  Mrs.  Thomas  Lee.  This  biography  set 
before  me,  just  at  the  right  time,  the  attrac 
tions  of  purely  literary  life,  carried  on  in  a 
perfectly  unworldly  spirit ;  and  his  story  of 
"Siebenkas,"  just  then  opportunely  translated, 
presented  the  same  thing  in  a  more  graphic 
way.  From  that  moment  poverty,  or  at  least 


88  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

extreme  economy,  had  no  terrors  for  me,  and  I 
could  not  bear  the  thought  of  devoting  my  life 
to  the  technicalities  of  Blackstone.  Not  that 
the  law-book  had  failed  to  interest  me,  —  for  it 
was  a  book,  —  but  I  could  not  consent  to  sur 
render  my  life  to  what  it  represented,  nor  have 
I  ever  repented  that  decision.  I  felt  instinc 
tively  what  the  late  Dwight  Foster  said  to  me 
long  after  :  "  The  objection  to  the  study  of  the 
law  is  not  that  it  is  not  interesting,  —  for  it  is 
eminently  so,  —  but  that  it  fills  your  mind  with 
knowledge  which  cannot  be  carried  into  another 
stage  of  existence."  Long  after  this,  more 
over,  my  classmate  Durant,  at  the  height  of 
his  professional  success,  once  stoutly  denied  to 
me  that  there  was  any  real  interest  to  be  found 
in  legal  study.  "The  law,"  he  said,  "is  sim 
ply  a  system  of  fossilized  inj  ustice ;  there  is 
not  enough  of  intellectual  interest  about  it  to 
occupy  an  intelligent  mind  for  an  hour."  This 
I  do  not  believe ;  and  he  was  probably  not  the 
highest  authority ;  yet  his  remark  and  Judge 
Foster's  always  helped  me  to  justify  to  myself 
that  early  choice. 

With  all  this  social  and  intellectual  occupa 
tion,  much  of  my  Brookline  life  was  lonely 
and  meditative ;  my  German  romances  made 
me  a  dreamer,  and  I  spent  much  time  in  the 
woods,  nominally  botanizing  but  in  reality  try- 


THE    PERIOD   OF   THE   NEWNESS       89 

ing  to  adjust  myself,  being  still  only  nineteen 
or  twenty,  to  the  problems  of  life.  One  favor 
ite  place  was  Hammond's  Pond,  then  cele 
brated  among  botanists  as  the  only  locality  for 
the  beautiful  Andromeda  polifolia,  so  named  by 
Linnaeus  because,  like  the  fabled  Andromeda,  it 
dwelt  in  wild  regions  only.  The  pond  was,  and 
I  believe  still  is,  surrounded  by  deep  woods  and 
overhung  by  a  hill  covered  with  moss-grown 
fragments  of  rock,  among  which  the  pink  Cy- 
pripedium  or  lady's  slipper  used  to  grow  pro 
fusely.  The  Andromeda  was  on  the  other  side 
of  the  lake,  and  some  one  had  left  a  leaky  boat 
there,  which  I  used  to  borrow  and  paddle  across 
the  dark  water,  past  a  cedar  forest  which  lined 
it  on  one  side,  and  made  me  associate  it  with 
the  gloomy  Mummelsee  of  one  of  my  beloved 
German  ballads  by  August  Schnezler  :  — 

"  Amid  the  gloomy  Mummelsee 
Do  live  the  palest  lilies  many. 
All  day  they  droop  so  drowsily 
In  azure  air  or  rainy, 
But  when  the  dreadful  moon  of  night 
Rains  down  on  earth  its  yellow  light, 
Up  spring  they,  full  of  lightness, 
In  woman's  form  and  brightness." 

My  lilies  were  as  pale  and  as  abundant  as 
any  German  lake  could  ever  boast ;  and  among 
them  there  was  to  be  seen  motionless  the  black 
prow  of  some  old  boat  which  had  sunk  at  its 


90  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

moorings  and  looked  so  uncanny  that  I  never 
would  row  near  it.  Above  the  lake  a  faint 
path  wound  up  the  hill  among  the  rocks,  and 
at  the  summit  there  was  a  large  detached  boul 
der  with  a  mouldering  ladder  reaching  its  top, 
where  I  used  to  climb  and  rest  after  my  long 
rambling.  Close  by  there  was  one  dead  pine- 
tree  of  the  older  growth  towering  above  the 
younger  trees ;  and  sometimes  a  homeward 
faring  robin  or  crow  would  perch  and  rest 
there  as  I  was  resting,  or  the  sweet  bell  of  the 
Newton  Theological  Seminary  on  its  isolated 
hill  would  peal  out  what  seemed  like  the  An- 
gelus. 

What  with  all  these  dreamings,  and  the  in 
fluence  of  Jean  Paul  and  Heine,  the  desire  for 
a  free  life  of  study,  and  perhaps  of  dreams, 
grew  so  strong  upon  me  that  I  decided  to  go 
back  to  Cambridge  as  "  resident  graduate,"  — • 
there  was  then  no  graduate  school,  —  and  es 
tablish  myself  as  cheaply  as  possible,  to  live 
after  my  own  will.  I  was  already  engaged  to 
be  married  to  one  of  the  Brookline  cousins,  but 
I  had  taken  what  my  mother  called  "  the  vow 
of  poverty,"  and  was  willing  to  risk  the  future. 
Mrs.  Farrar,  an  old  friend  of  the  family,  with 
whom  I  had  spent  a  part  of  the  summer  before 
entering  college,  reported  with  satisfaction  that 
she  had  met  me  one  day  driving  my  own  small 


THE   PERIOD   OF   THE   NEWNESS       91 

wagon-load  of  furniture  over  muddy  roads  from 
Brookline  to  Cambridge,  like  any  emigrant  lad, 
whereas  the  last  time  she  had  seen  me  before 
was  at  the  opera  in  Boston,  with  soiled  white 
kid  gloves  on.  Never  was  I  happier  in  my  life 
than  at  that  moment  of  transformation  when  she 
saw  me.  It  was  my  Flight  into  Egypt. 

I  established  myself  in  the  cheapest  room  I 
could  find,  in  a  house  then  called  "College 
House,"  and  standing  on  part  of  the  ground 
now  occupied  by  the  block  of  that  name.  Its 
familiar  appellation  in  Cambridge  was  "The 
Old  Den,"  and  my  only  housemate  at  first  was 
an  eccentric  law  student,  or  embryo  lawyer, 
popularly  known  as  "Light-House  Thomas," 
because  he  had  fitted  himself  for  college  in 
one  of  those  edifices.  Here  at  last  I  could  live 
in  my  own  way,  making  both  ends  meet  by  an 
occasional  pupil,  and  enjoying  the  same  free 
dom  which  Thoreau,  then  unknown  to  me, 
was  afterwards  to  possess  in  his  hut.  I  did 
not  know  exactly  what  I  wished  to  study  in 
Cambridge  ;  indeed,  I  went  there  to  find  out. 
Perhaps  I  had  some  vague  notion  of  prepar 
ing  myself  for  a  professorship  in  literature  or 
mathematics  and  metaphysics,  but  in  the  mean 
time  I  read,  as  Emerson  says  of  Margaret 
Fuller,  "at  a  rate  like  Gibbon's."  There  was 
the  obstacle  to  be  faced,  which  has  indeed 


92  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

always  proved  too  much  for  me,  —  the  enor 
mous  wealth  of  the  world  of  knowledge,  and 
the  stupendous  variety  of  that  which  I  wished 
to  know.  Doubtless  the  modern  elective  sys 
tem,  or  even  a  wise  teacher,  would  have  helped 
me ;  they  would  have  compelled  me  to  con 
centration,  but  perhaps  I  may  have  absolutely 
needed  some  such  period  of  intellectual  wild 
oats.  This  was  in  September,  1843. 

I  read  in  that  year,  and  a  subsequent  similar 
year,  the  most  desultory  and  disconnected  books, 
the  larger  the  better:  Newton's  "Principia"  and 
Whewell's  "Mechanical  Euclid;"  Ritter's  "His 
tory  of  Ancient  Philosophy;"  Sismondi's  "De 
cline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire;"  Lamen- 
nais'  "Paroles  d'un  Croyant"and  "Livre  du 
Peuple;"  Homer  and  Hesiod;  Linnaeus's  "Cor 
respondence;"  Emerson  over  and  over.  Fortu 
nately  I  kept  up  outdoor  life  also  and  learned 
the  point  where  books  and  nature  meet ;  learned 
that  Chaucer  belongs  to  spring,  German  ro 
mance  to  summer  nights,  Amadis  de  Gaul  and 
the  Morte  d' Arthur  to  the  Christmas  time ; 
and  found  that  books  of  natural  history,  in  Tho- 
reau's  phrase,  "furnish  the  cheerfulest  winter 
reading."  Bettine  Brentano  and  Giinderode — 
the  correspondence  between  the  two  maidens 
being  just  then  translated  by  Margaret  Fuller 
—  also  fascinated  me ;  and  I  have  seldom  been 


THE   PERIOD   OF   THE   NEWNESS       93 

happier  than  when  I  spent  two  summer  days 
beside  the  Rhine,  many  years  after,  in  visiting 
the  very  haunts  where  Bettine  romanced,  and 
the  spot  where  Giinderode  died 

I  tried  to  read  all  night  occasionally,  as 
Lowell  told  me  he  had  sometimes  done,  and 
as  a  mathematical  classmate  of  mine  had  done 
weekly,  to  my  envy;  but  sleepiness  and  the 
morning  chill  soon  checked  this  foolish  enter 
prise.  On  one  of  these  nights  I  had  an  experi 
ence  so  nearly  incredible  that  I  scarcely  dare 
to  tell  it,  yet  it  was,  I  believe,  essentially  true. 
Sitting  up  till  four  one  morning  over  a  volume 
of  Lamennais,  I  left  the  mark  at  an  unfinished 
page,  having  to  return  the  book  to  the  college 
library.  A  year  after  I  happened  to  take  the 
book  from  the  library  again,  got  up  at  four 
o'clock  to  read,  began  where  I  left  off,  and 
afterwards,  —  not  till  afterwards,  —  looking  in 
my  diary,  found  that  I  had  simply  skipped  a 
precise  year  and  gone  on  with  the  passage. 

I  continued  to  teach  myself  German  on  a 
preposterous  plan  brought  forward  in  those 
days  by  a  learned  Hungarian,  Dr.  Charles 
Kraitsir,  who  had  a  theory  of  the  alphabet, 
and  held  that  by  its  means  all  the  Indo-Euro 
pean  languages  could  be  resolved  into  one ;  so 
that  we  could  pass  from  each  to  another  by  an 
effort  of  will,  like  the  process  of  mind-healing. 


94  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

Tried  on  the  German  ballads  this  method 
proved  very  seductive,  but  when  one  went  a 
step  farther  it  turned  out  very  superficial ;  as  is 
therefore  all  my  knowledge  of  German,  though 
I  have  read  a  good  deal  of  it.  All  this  way 
of  living  was  intellectually  very  risky,  as  is 
the  process  of  "boarding  one's  self"  —  which  I 
have  also  tried  —  for  the  body ;  and  I  am  glad 
to  have  come  with  no  more  serious  injury 
through  them  both.  For  a  specialist  this  course 
would  have  been  disastrous,  but  I  was  plainly 
not  destined  for  a  specialist ;  for  a  predestined 
essayist  and  public  speaker,  it  was  not  so  bad, 
since  to  him  nothing  comes  amiss.  Fortunately 
it  was  a  period  when  a  tonic  influence  and  a 
cohesive  restraint  came  from  a  wholly  different 
direction ;  indeed,  I  might  say  from  two  direc 
tions. 

The  first  of  these  influences  was  the  renewal 
of  my  acquaintance  with  Lowell,  which  had 
been  waived  during  my  two  years'  stay  in 
Brookline.  He  recognized  in  Thaxter,  who 
about  this  time  went  to  New  York  to  study  for 
the  dramatic  profession,  and  in  myself,  two  of 
his  stoutest  advocates.  We  met  a  little  more 
on  a  level  than  before ;  the  difference  of  nearly 
five  years  which  had  formerly  made  him  only 
my  elder  brother's  crony  was  now  becoming 
less  important,  and  I  found  myself  approaching 


THE    PERIOD   OF   THE    NEWNESS       95 

that  maturer  period  which  a  clever  woman  de 
fined  as  "the  age  of  everybody."  To  be  sure, 
I  could  recall  the  time  when  my  brother  had 
come  home  one  evening  with  the  curt  remark, 
"  Jim  Lowell  doubts  whether  he  shall  really 
be  a  lawyer,  after  all ;  he  thinks  he  shall  be  a 
poet."  Now  that  poet  was  really  launched,  and 
indeed  was  "the  best  launched  man  of  his  time," 
as  Willis  said.  I  used  to  go  to  his  room  and 
to  read  books  he  suggested,  such  as  Putten- 
ham's  "Arte  of  Poesie,"  and  Chapman's  plays. 
He  did  most  of  the  talking ;  it  was  a  way  he 
had ;  but  he  was  always  original  and  trenchant, 
though  I  sometimes  rebelled  inwardly  at  his 
very  natural  attitude  of  leadership.  We  occa 
sionally  walked  out  together,  late  in  the  evening, 
from  Emerson's  lectures  or  the  concerts  which 
were  already  introducing  Beethoven.  Some 
times  there  was  a  reception  after  the  lecture, 
usually  at  the  rooms  of  a  youth  who  was  an 
ardent  Fourierite,  and  had  upon  his  door  a  blaz 
ing  sun,  with  gilded  rays  emanating  in  all  direc 
tions,  and  bearing  the  motto  "  Universal  Unity." 
Beneath  this  appeared  a  neat  black-and-white 
inscription,  thus  worded  :  "  Please  wipe  your 
feet." 

Our  evening  walks  from  Boston  were  delight 
ful;  and  Longfellow's  poem  of  "The  Bridge" 
does  little  more  than  put  into  verse  the  thoughts 


96  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

they  inspired.  The  walk  was  then,  as  is  cer 
tainly  not  now  the  case,  a  plunge  into  dark 
ness  ;  and  there  is  no  other  point  from  which 
the  transformation  of  the  older  Boston  is  more 
conspicuous.  You  now  cross  the  bridge  at 
night  through  a  circle  of  radiant  lights  glancing 
in  brilliant  lines  through  all  the  suburbs  ;  but 
in  the  old  nights  there  was  here  and  there  in 
the  distance  a  dim  oil  lamp ;  in  time  oil  gave 
place  to  kerosene  ;  then  came  gas,  then  electri 
city,  and  still  the  brighter  the  lamps,  the  more 
they  multiplied.  The  river  itself  was  different ; 
there  were  far  more  vessels,  and  I  have  myself 
been  hailed  on  the  bridge  and  offered  money  to 
pilot  a  coasting  schooner  to  Watertown.  Seals 
also  came  above  the  wharves  and  gave  Lowell 
the  material  for  one  of  his  best  stories,  but 
one  which  he  never,  I  think,  quite  ventured  to 
print.  He  saw  two  farmer  lads  watching  from 
the  bridge  one  of  these  visitors  as  he  played 
in  the  water.  "Wai,  neaow,"  said  one  of  the 
youths,  "be  them  kind  o'  critters  common  up 
this  way,  do  ye  suppose?  Be  they  —  or  be 
they?"  "Wai,"  responded  the  other,  "dun- 
no's  they  be,  and  dunno  ez  they  be."  This 
perfect  flower  of  New  England  speech,  twin 
blossoms  on  one  stem,  delighted  Lowell  hugely ; 
and  it  was  so  unexampled  in  my  own  experi 
ence  that  it  always  inspired  in  me  a  slight  dis- 


THE   PERIOD   OF  THE   NEWNESS       97 

trust,  as  being  too  good  to  be  true.  Perhaps 
it  created  a  little  envy,  as  was  the  case  with 
Albert  Dicey,  when  he  and  James  Bryce  first 
visited  America,  and  I  met  them  at  a  dinner 
party  in  Newport.  Dicey  came  in,  rubbing 
his  hands,  and  saying  with  eagerness,  "  Bryce 
is  very  happy ;  at  the  Ocean  House  he  has  just 
heard  a  man  say  European  twice !  " 

Another  and  yet  more  tonic  influence,  though 
Lowell  was  already  an  ardent  Abolitionist, 
came  from  the  presence  of  reformatory  agita 
tion  in  the  world  outside.  There  were  always 
public  meetings  in  Boston  to  be  attended ; 
there  were  social  reform  gatherings  where  I 
heard  the  robust  Orestes  Brownson  and  my 
eloquent  cousin  William  Henry  Channing ; 
there  were  anti-slavery  conventions,  with  Garri 
son  and  Phillips ;  then  on  Sunday  there  were 
Theodore  Parker  and  James  Freeman  Clarke, 
to  show  that  one  might  accomplish  something 
and  lead  a  manly  life  even  in  the  pulpit.  My 
betrothed  was  one  of  the  founders  of  Clarke's 
Church  of  the  Disciples,  and  naturally  drew  me 
there  ;  the  services  were  held  in  a  hall  and 
were  quite  without  those  merely  ecclesiastical 
associations  which  were  then  unattractive  to 
me,  and  have  never  yet,  I  fear,  quite  asserted 
their  attraction.  I  learned  from  Clarke  the 
immense  value  of  simplicity  of  statement  and 


98  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

perfect  straightforwardness  of  appeal ;  but  in 
the  direction  of  pure  thought  and  advanced 
independence  of  opinion,  Theodore  Parker  was 
my  teacher.  To  this  day  I  sometimes  dream 
of  going  to  hear  him  preach,  —  the  great,  free, 
eager  congregation ;  the  strong,  serious,  com 
manding  presence  of  the  preacher ;  his  rev 
erent  and  earnest  prayer;  his  comprehensive 
hour-long  sermon  full  of  sense,  knowledge,  feel 
ing,  courage,  he  being  not  afraid  even  of  his 
own  learning,  absolutely  holding  his  audience 
in  the  hollow  of  his  hand.  Once  in  New  York 
a  few  years  ago  I  went  to  Dr.  Rainsford's 
church  and  felt  for  a  moment  or  two  —  not, 
indeed,  while  the  surpliced  choir  was  singing 
—  that  I  was  again  in  the  hands  of  Theodore 
Parker. 

Under  the  potent  influences  of  Parker  and 
Clarke  I  found  myself  gravitating  toward  what 
was  then  called  the  "  liberal "  ministry ;  one 
very  much  secularized  it  must  be,  I  foresaw, 
to  satisfy  me.  Even  in  this  point  of  view  my 
action  was  regarded  rather  askance  by  some  of 
my  more  strenuous  transcendental  friends,  even 
George  William  Curtis  expressing  a  little  dis 
approval  ;  though  in  later  years  he  himself  took 
to  the  pulpit,  —  in  a  yet  more  secular  fashion, 
to  be  sure,  —  a  good  while  after  I  had  left  it. 
I  had  put  myself  meanwhile  in  somewhat  the 


THE   PERIOD   OF  THE   NEWNESS       99 

position  of  that  backsliding  youth  at  Concord 
of  whom  some  feminine  friend  said  anxiously, 
"I  am  troubled  about  Eben ;  he  used  to  be  a 
real  Come-Outer,  interested  in  all  the  reforms ; 
but  now  he  smokes  and  swears  and  goes  to 
church,  and  is  just  like  any  other  young  man." 
Yet  I  resolved  to  risk  even  this  peril,  removed 
my  modest  belongings  to  Divinity  Hall,  and 
bought  one  of  those  very  Hebrew  Bibles  which 
my  father  had  once  criticised  as  having  their 
title-pages  at  the  wrong  end 


IV 

THE   REARING   OF   A   REFORMER 

SOME  years  before  the  time  when  I  entered 
the  Harvard  Divinity  School,  it  had  been  de 
scribed  by  the  Rev.  Dr.  J.  G.  Palfrey,  then  its 
dean,  as  being  made  up  of  mystics,  skeptics, 
and  dyspeptics.  This,  being  interpreted,  really 
meant  that  the  young  men  there  assembled 
were  launched  on  that  wave  of  liberal  thought 
which,  under  Emerson  and  Parker,  was  rapidly 
submerging  the  old  landmarks.  For  myself,  I 
was  wholly  given  over  to  the  newer  phase  of 
thought,  and  after  a  year  of  un  chartered  free 
dom  was  ready  to  concentrate  my  reading  a 
little  and  follow  the  few  appointed  lines  of  study 
which  the  school  then  required.  The  teachers 
were  men  quite  worth  knowing ;  and  Dr.  Con- 
vers  Francis,  especially,  had  a  noted  library  and 
as  dangerous  a  love  of  miscellaneous  reading  as 
my  own.  Accordingly,  during  the  first  year  I 
kept  up  that  perilous  habit,  and  at  the  end  of 
this  time  stayed  out  of  the  school  for  another 
year  of  freedom,  returning  only  for  the  neces 
sary  final  terms.  There  had  just  been  a  large 


THE   REARING   OF   A   REFORMER      101 

accession  of  books  at  the  college  library,  and 
from  that  and  the  Francis  collection  I  had  a  full 
supply.  I  read  Comte  and  Fourier,  Strauss's 
"  Life  of  Jesus "  (a  French  translation),  and 
bought  by  economy  a  fine  folio  copy  of  Cud- 
worth's  "Intellectual  System,"  on  which  I  used 
to  browse  at  all  odd  hours  —  keeping  it  open 
on  a  standing  desk.  I  read  Mill's  "Logic," 
Whewell's  "Inductive  Sciences,"  Landor's  "Ge- 
bir  "  and  "Imaginary  Conversations."  Maria 
Lowell  lent  me  also  Landor's  "  Pentameron,"  a 
book  with  exquisite  passages ;  Alford's  poems, 
then  new,  and,  as  she  said,  "  valuable  for 
their  simplicity;"  and  the  fiery  German  lays 
of  Hoffmann  von  Fallersleben,  some  of  which 
I  translated,  as  was  also  the  case  with  poems 
from  Riickert  and  Freiligrath,  besides  making 
a  beginning  at  a  version  of  the  Swedish  epic 
"Frithiofs  Saga,"  which  Longfellow  admired, 

and  of  Fredrika  Bremer's  novel,  "The  H 

Family."  I  returned  to  Homer  and  Dante  in 
the  originals,  and  read  something  of  Plato  in 
Cousin's  French  translation,  with  an  occasional 
reference  to  the  Greek  text. 

Some  verses  were  contributed  by  me,  as  well 
as  by  my  sister  Louisa,  at  various  times,  to 
"The  Harbinger,"  published  at  Brook  Farm  and 
edited  by  the  late  Charles  A.  Dana.  My  first 
poem,  suggested  by  the  fine  copy  of  the  Sistine 


102  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

Madonna  which  had  been  my  housemate  at 
Brookline,  had,  however,  been  printed  in  "  The 
Present,"  a  short-lived  magazine  edited  by  my 
cousin,  William  Henry  Channing;  the  verses 
being  afterward,  to  my  great  delight,  reprinted 
by  Professor  Longfellow  in  his  "Estray."  My 
first  prose,  also,  had  appeared  in  "  The  Present," 
—  an  enthusiastic  review  of  Mrs.  Child's  "  Let 
ters  from  New  York,"  then  eagerly  read  by  us 
young  Transcendentalists.  I  dipped  ardently, 
about  that  time,  into  the  easier  aspects  of  Ger 
man  philosophy,  reading  Fichte's  "  Bestimmung 
des  Menschen  "  (Destiny  of  Man)  with  delight, 
and  Schelling's  "Vorlesungen  iiber  die  Me- 
thode  des  Akademischen  Studiums  "  (Lectures 
on  Academical  Study).  The  influence  of  these 
authors  was  also  felt  through  Coleridge's  "  Lit 
erary  Remains,"  of  which  I  was  very  fond,  and 
in  "Vital  Dynamics,"  by  Dr.  Green,  Coleridge's 
friend  and  physician.  A  more  perilous  book 
was  De  Quincey's  "  Confessions  of  an  English 
Opium-Eater,"  which  doubtless  created  more  of 
such  slaves  than  it  liberated  :  I  myself  was  led 
to  try  some  guarded  experiments  in  that  direc 
tion,  which  had  happily  no  effect,  and  I  was 
glad  to  abandon  them.  It  seems,  in  looking 
back,  a  curious  escapade  for  one  who  had  a  nat 
ural  dislike  for  all  stimulants  and  narcotics  and 
had  felt  no  temptation  of  that  kind ;  I  probably 


THE   REARING   OF  A   REFORMER      103 

indulged  the  hope  of  stimulating  my  imagina 
tion. 

My  mother  and  sisters  having  now  left  Cam 
bridge,  I  rarely  went  to  any  house  there,  ex 
cept  sometimes  to  Lowell's,  where  his  sweet 
wife  now  presided  over  the  upper  story  of  his 
father's  large  abode.  She  kept  things  as  or 
derly  as  she  could  ;  always  cruising  like  Admi 
ral  Van  Tromp,  Lowell  said,  with  a  broom  at  her 
mast-head.  She  had  fitted  the  rooms  with  pretty 
devices,  and  rocked  her  baby  in  a  cradle  fash 
ioned  from  a  barrel  cut  lengthways,  placed  on 
rockers,  and  upholstered  by  herself.  At  its  foot 
she  painted  three  spears  as  the  Lowell  crest  and 
three  lilies  for  her  own,  with  the  motto  "  Puri- 
tas  Potestas."  This  was  fof  their  first  child, 
whose  early  death  both  Lowell  and  Longfel 
low  mourned  in  song.  The  Lowells  sometimes 
saw  company  in  a  modest  way,  and  I  remember 
spending  an  evening  there  with  Ole  Bull  and 
John  Weiss.  Dr.  Lowell,  the  father,  was  yet 
living,  always  beneficent  and  attractive ;  he  still 
sometimes  preached  in  the  college  chapel,  and 
won  all  undergraduate  hearts  by  providing  only 
fifteen-minute  sermons. 

If  I  belonged  in  the  first  two  categories  of 
Dr.  Palfrey's  classification  of  the  Divinity 
School,  I  happily  kept  clear  of  the  third,  never 
having  been  a  dyspeptic,  though  I  lived  literally 


104  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

on  bread  and  milk  during  the  greater  part  of 
a  year,  for  purposes  of  necessary  economy  and 
the  buying  of  books.  I  kept  up  habits  of  ac 
tive  exercise,  played  football  and  baseball,  and 
swam  in  the  river  in  summer.  There  was  then 
an  attention  paid  to  the  art  of  swimming  such 
as  is  not  now  observable;  the  college  main 
tained  large  bath-houses  where  now  are  coal- 
yards,  and  we  used  to  jump  or  dive  from  the 
roofs,  perhaps  twenty  feet  high ;  we  had  a 
Danish  student  named  Stallknecht,  who  could 
swim  a  third  of  the  way  across  the  river  under 
water,  and  we  vainly  tried  to  emulate  him.  In 
winter  there  was  skating  on  Fresh  Pond.  I 
must  not  forget  to  add  that  at  all  seasons  I  took 
long  walks  with  Edward  Tuckerman,  then  the 
most  interesting  man  about  Cambridge,  lead 
ing  a  life  which  seemed  to  us  like  that  of  an 
Oxford  don,  and  already  at  work  on  his  Latin 
treatise  on  lichens.  His  room  was  a  delightful 
place  to  visit,  —  a  large  chamber  in  a  rambling 
old  house,  with  three  separate  reading-tables, 
one  for  botany,  one  for  the  study  of  Coleridge, 
and  one  for  the  Greek  drama.  He  was  the 
simplest-hearted  of  men,  shy,  near-sighted,  and 
lovable  ;  the  tragedy  of  whose  life  was  that  his 
cruel  father  had  sent  him  to  Union  College 
instead  of  to  Harvard ;  a  loss  he  made  up  by 
staying  years  at  the  latter,  graduating  succes- 


THE   REARING  OF  A   REFORMER     105 

sively  at  the  Law  School  and  the  Divinity 
School,  and  finally  taking  his  degree  in  the  un 
dergraduate  department  at  what  seemed  to  us 
a  ripe  old  age. 

Another  tonic  in  the  way  of  cultured  com 
panionship  was  that  of  James  Elliot  Cabot,  fresh 
from  a  German  university,  —  then  a  rare  expe 
rience, —  he  being,  however,  most  un-German 
in  clearness  and  terseness.  I  remember  that 
when  I  complained  to  him  of  not  understanding 
Kant's  "  Critique  of  Pure  Reason,"  in  English, 
he  answered  tranquilly  that  he  could  not ;  that 
having  read  it  twice  in  German  he  had  thought 
he  comprehended  it,  but  that  Meiklejohn's  trans 
lation  was  beyond  making  out.  These  men 
were  not  in  the  Divinity  School,  but  I  met  their 
equals  there.  The  hading  men  of  a  college  class 
gravitated  then  as  naturally  to  the  Divinity 
School  as  now  to  the  Law  School;  even  though, 
like  myself,  they  passed  to  other  pursuits  after 
ward.  I  met  there  such  men  as  Thomas  Hill, 
afterward  President  of  Harvard  ;  Octavius  B. 
Frothingham  ;  William  R.  Alger ;  Samuel  Long 
fellow  and  Samuel  Johnson,  who  compiled  at 
Divinity  Hall  their  collection  of  hymns,  —  a 
volume  called  modestly  "  A  Book  of  Hymns," 
and  more  profanely  named  from  its  editors' 
familiar  names  "The  Sam  Book."  Longfellow 
was  one  of  the  born  saints,  but  with  a  breadth 


106  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

and  manliness  not  always  to  be  found  in  that 
class  ;  he  was  also  a  genuine  poet,  like  his  elder 
brother,  whose  biographer  he  afterward  became. 
Johnson,  a  man  of  brilliant  gifts  and  much  per 
sonal  charm,  is  now  best  known  by  his  later 
work  on  "  Oriental  Religions."  It  is  a  curi 
ous  fact  that  many  of  their  youthful  hymns  as 
well  as  some  of  my  own,  appearing  originally  in 
this  heterodox  work,  have  long  since  found  their 
way  into  the  most  orthodox  and  respectable 
collections. 

Two  of  the  most  interesting  men  in  the  Divin 
ity  School  were  afterward,  like  myself,  in  mil 
itary  service  during  the  Civil  War.  One  of 
them  was  James  Richardson,  whom  Frothing- 
ham  described  later  as  "a  brilliant  wreath  of 
fire-mist,  which  seemed  every  moment  to  be  on 
the  point  of  becoming  a  star,  but  never  did." 
He  enlisted  as  a  private  soldier  and  died  in  hos 
pital,  where  he  had  been  detailed  as  nurse. 
The  other  had  been  educated  at  West  Point, 
and  had  served  in  the  Florida  Indian  wars; 
he  was  strikingly  handsome  and  mercilessly 
opinionated ;  he  commanded  the  first  regiment 
of  heavy  artillery  raised  in  Massachusetts,  did 
much  for  the  defense  of  Washington  in  the 
early  days  of  the  Civil  War,  and  resigned  his 
commission  when  Governor  Andrew  refused 
to  see  justice  done  —  as  he  thought  —  to  one 


THE   REARING   OF   A   REFORMER      107 

of  his  subordinates.  His  name  was  William 
Batcheldor  Greene. 

But  all  these  companionships  were  wholly 
secondary  to  one  which  was  for  me  most  mem 
orable,  and  brought  joy  for  a  few  years  and 
sorrow  for  many.  Going  through  the  doors  of 
Divinity  Hall  I  met  one  day  a  young  man  so 
handsome  in  his  dark  beauty  that  he  seemed 
like  a  picturesque  Oriental ;  slender,  keen-eyed, 
raven-haired,  he  arrested  the  eye  and  the  heart 
like  some  fascinating  girl.  This  was  William 
Hurlbert  (originally  Hurlbut),  afterward  the 
hero  of  successive  novels,  —  Kingsley's  "  Two 
Years  Ago,"  Winthrop's  "  Cecil  Dreeme,"  and 
my  own  "Malbone," — as  well  as  of  actual 
events  stranger  than  any  novels.  He  was  the 
breaker,  so  report  said,  of  many  hearts,  the 
disappointer  of  many  high  hopes,  —  and  this 
in  two  continents ;  he  was  the  most  variously 
gifted  and  accomplished  man  I  have  ever 
known,  acquiring  knowledge  as  by  magic,  — 
passing  easily  for  a  Frenchman  in  France,  an 
Italian  in  Italy,  a  Spaniard  in  Spanish  coun 
tries  ;  beginning  his  career  as  a  radical  young 
Unitarian  divine,  and  ending  it  as  a  defender  of 
despotism.  He  was  also  for  a  time  a  Roman 
Catholic,  but  died  in  the  Church  of  England. 

The  turning-point  of  Hurlbert' s  life  occurred, 
for  me  at  least,  when  I  met  him  once,  to  my 


io8  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

great  delight,  at  Centre  Harbor,  I  being  on  my 
way  to  the  White  Mountains  and  he  returning 
thence.  We  had  several  hours  together,  and 
went  out  on  the  lake  for  a  long  chat.  He  told 
me  that  he  had  decided  to  go  to  New  York 
and  enter  the  office  of  A.  Oakey  Hall,  a  law 
yer  against  whom  there  was  then,  justly  or 
unjustly,  some  prejudice.  I  expressed  surprise 
and  perhaps  regret ;  and  he  said  frankly,  "It  is 
the  parting  of  the  ways  with  me,  and  I  feel  it 
to  be  necessary.  I  have  made  up  my  mind 
that  I  cannot  live  the  simple  and  moderate 
life  you  and  my  other  friends  live  in  New  Eng 
land  ;  I  must  have  a  larger  field,  and  more  of 
the  appliances  and  even  luxuries  of  existence." 
This  recalls  what  the  latest  biographer  of  Bay 
ard  Taylor  has  said  of  him  :  "  The  men  of  New 
England  were  satisfied  with  plain  homes  and 
simple  living,  and  were  content  with  the  small 
incomes  of  professional  life.  Taylor  had  other 
aims.  .  .  .  Involved  in  the  expense  of  Cedar- 
croft,  he  never  knew  the  enormous  value  of 
freedom." 

There  was  nothing  intrinsically  wrong  in  the 
impulse  of  either,  but  the  ambition  brought 
failure  to  both,  though  Taylor,  with  the  tra 
dition  of  a  Quaker  ancestry,  and  with  less  of 
perilous  personal  fascination,  escaped  the  moral 
deterioration  and  the  social  scandals  which  be- 


THE   REARING   OF  A   REFORMER     109 

set  Hurlbert,  as  well  as  his  utter  renunciation 
of  all  his  early  convictions.  Yet  the  charm 
always  remained  in  Hurlbert's  case.  When 
we  met  at  Centre  Harbor,  I  remember,  he  was 
summoned  from  dinner  on  some  question  about 
stage  arrangements  ;  and  the  moment  he  had 
shut  the  door  a  lady  of  cultivated  appearance 
got  up  hastily  from  her  chair  and  came  round 
where  I  was  sitting.  She  said  breathlessly, 
"  Can  you  tell  me  who  that  is  ?  We  came  here 
in  the  stage  with  him,  and  he  has  been  per 
fectly  delightful.  I  never  saw  such  a  man  :  he 
knows  all  languages,  talks  upon  all  subjects  ; 
my  daughter  and  I  cannot  rest  without  knowing 
who  he  is."  I  did  not  even  learn  the  lady's 
name,  but  years  after  I  met  her  again,  and  she 
recalled  the  interview ;  time  for  her  had  only 
confirmed  the  instantaneous  impression  which 
Hurlbert  made, —  the  whole  thing  suggesting 
a  similar  story  about  Edmund  Burke. 

In  Burke's  case  it  was  apparently  a  matter 
of  pure  intellect,  but  in  Hurlbert's  it  was  due 
largely  to  the  constitutional  and  invariable  im 
pulse  to  attract  and  charm.  I  am  told  —  for  I 
had  utterly  forgotten  it  —  that  I  myself  said  of 
him  in  those  days,  "  He  could  not  stop  to  buy 
an  apple  of  an  old  woman  on  the  sidewalk  with 
out  leaving  her  with  the  impression  that  she 
alone  had  really  touched  his  heart." 


no  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

I  have  known  many  gifted  men  on  both  sides 
of  the  Atlantic,  but  I  still  regard  Hurlbert 
as  unequaled  among  them  all  for  natural  bril 
liancy;  even  Lowell  was  not  his  peer.  Nor 
can  I  be  convinced  that  he  was  —  as  President 
Walker  once  said  to  me,  when  I  urged  Hurl- 
bert's  appointment,  about  1850,  as  professor 
of  history  at  Harvard  —  "a  worthless  fellow." 
Among  many  things  which  were  selfish  and 
unscrupulous  there  must  have  been  something 
deeper  to  have  called  out  the  warm  affection 
created  by  him  in  both  sexes.  I  strongly  sus 
pect  that  if,  after  twenty  years  of  non- inter 
course,  he  had  written  to  me  to  come  and  nurse 
him  in  illness,  I  should  have  left  all  and  gone. 
Whatever  may  have  been  his  want  of  moral  prin 
ciple,  he  certainly  had  the  power  not  merely 
of  inspiring  affection,  but  of  returning  it.  I 
know,  for  instance,  that  while  borrowing  money 
right  and  left,  he  never  borrowed  of  me,  —  not 
that  I  had  then  much  to  lend;  if  he  helped 
himself  to  my  books  and  other  small  matters 
as  if  they  were  his  own,  he  was  not  an  atom 
more  chary  of  the  possessions  that  were  his ; 
and  I  recall  one  occasion  when  he  left  a  charm 
ing  household  in  Boston  and  came  out  to  Cam 
bridge,  in  the  middle  of  a  winter  vacation,  on 
purpose  to  have  a  fire  ready  for  me  in  my  room 
on  my  return  from  a  journey.  I  think  it  was 


THE  REARING  OF  A  REFORMER  in 

on  that  very  evening  that  he  read  aloud  to  me 
from  Krummacher's  "Parables,"  a  book  then 
much  liked  among  us,  —  selecting  that  fine  tale 
describing  the  gradual  downfall  of  a  youth  of 
unbounded  aspirations,  which  the  author  sums 
up  with  the  terse  conclusion,  "  But  the  name  of 
that  youth  is  not  mentioned  among  the  poets 
of  Greece."  It  was  thus  with  Hurlbert  when 
he  died,  although  his  few  poems  in  "  Putnam's 
Magazine  "  —  "  Borodino,"  "  Sorrento,"  and  the 
like  —  seemed  to  us  the  dawn  of  a  wholly  new 
genius  ;  and  I  remember  that  when  the  cool  and 
keen-sighted  Whittier  read  his  "  Gan  Eden,"  he 
said  to  me  that  one  who  had  written  that  could 
write  anything  he  pleased.  Yet  the  name  of 
the  youth  was  not  mentioned  among  the  poets ; 
and  the  utter  indifference  with  which  the  an 
nouncement  of  his  death  was  received  was  a 
tragic  epitaph  upon  a  wasted  life. 

Thanks  to  a  fortunate  home  training  and  the 
subsequent  influence  of  Emerson  and  Parker,  I 
held  through  all  my  theological  studies  a  sunny 
view  of  the  universe,  which  has  lasted  me  as 
well,  amid  the  storms  of  life,  so  far  as  I  can 
see,  as  the  more  prescribed  and  conventional 
forms  of  faith  might  have  done.  We  all,  no 
doubt,  had  our  inner  conflicts,  yet  mine  never 
related  to  opinions,  but  to  those  problems  of 
heart  and  emotion  which  come  to  every  young 


112  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

person,  and  upon  which  it  is  not  needful  to 
dwell.  Many  of  my  fellow  students,  however, 
had  just  broken  away  from  a  sterner  faith, 
whose  shattered  eggshells  still  clung  around 
them.  My  friend  of  later  years,  David  Wasson, 
used  to  say  that  his  health  was  ruined  for  life  by 
two  struggles :  first  by  the  way  in  which  he  got 
into  the  church  during  a  revival,  and  then  by 
the  way  he  got  out  of  it  as  a  reformer.  This 
I  escaped,  and  came  out  in  the  end  with  the 
radical  element  so  much  stronger  than  the  sacer 
dotal,  that  I  took  for  the  title  of  my  address 
at  the  graduating  exercises  "The  Clergy  and 
Reform."  I  remember  that  I  had  just  been 
reading  Home's  farthing  epic  of  Orion,  and  had 
an  ambitious  sentence  in  my  address,  compar 
ing  the  spirit  of  the  age  to  that  fabled  being, 
first  blinded,  and  then  fixing  his  sightless  eyes 
upon  the  sun  that  they  might  be  set  free  once 
more.  Probably  it  was  crude  enough,  but  The 
odore  Parker  liked  it,  and  so  I  felt  as  did  the 
brave  Xanthus,  described  by  Landor,  who  only 
remembered  that  in  the  heat  of  the  battle  Peri 
cles  smiled  on  him.  I  was  asked  to  preach 
as  a  candidate  before  the  First  Religious  So 
ciety  at  Newburyport,  a  church  two  hundred 
years  old,  then  ostensibly  of  the  Unitarian 
faith,  but  bearing  no  denominational  name. 
Receiving  a  farther  invitation  after  trial,  I  went 


THE   REARING  OF  A  REFORMER     113 

there  to  begin  my  professional  career,  if  such 
it  could  properly  be  called. 

There  was  something  very  characteristic  of 
my  mother  in  a  little  incident  which  happened 
in  connection  with  my  first  visit  to  Newbury- 
port.  I  had  retained  enough  affection  for  the 
opinion  of  Boston  drawing-rooms  to  have  de 
vised  for  myself  a  well-cut  overcoat  of  gray 
tweed,  with  a  cap  of  the  same  material  trimmed 
with  fur.  My  elder  sisters  naturally  admired 
me  in  this  garb,  but  implored  me  not  to  wear  it 
to  Newburyport.  "  So  unclerical,"  they  said  ; 
it  would  ruin  my  prospects.  "  Let  him  wear 
it,  by  all  means,"  said  my  wiser  mother.  "  If 
they  cannot  stand  that  clothing,  they  can  never 
stand  its  wearer."  Her  opinion  properly  pre 
vailed  ;  and  I  was  perhaps  helped  as  much  as 
hindered  by  this  bit  of  lingering  worldly  vanity. 
The  younger  people  expected  some  pleasant  ad 
mixture  of  heresy  about  me,  and  it  might  as  well 
begin  in  this  way  as  in  any  other.  Henry  C. 
Wright,  afterward  a  prominent  Abolitionist,  had 
lost  his  parish,  a  few  miles  above  Newburyport, 
for  the  alleged  indecorum  of  swimming  across 
the  Merrimack  River. 

My  first  actual  proposal  of  innovation  was  in 
a  less  secular  line,  but  was  equally  formida 
ble.  It  was  that  I  should  be  ordained  as  The 
odore  Parker  had  been,  by  the  society  itself:  and 


114  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

this  all  the  more  because  my  ancestor,  Francis 
Higginson,  had  been  ordained  in  that  way  — 
the  first  of  all  New  England  ordinations  —  in 
1629.  To  this  the  society  readily  assented,  at 
least  so  far  as  that  there  should  be  no  ordain 
ing  council,  and  there  was  none.  William 
Henry  Channing  preached  one  of  his  impas 
sioned  sermons,  "  The  Gospel  of  To-Day,"  and 
all  went  joyously  on,  "  youth  at  the  prow  and 
pleasure  at  the  helm,"  not  foreseeing  the  storms 
that  were  soon  to  gather,  although  any  saga 
cious  observer  ought  easily  to  have  predicted 
them.  It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  during 
all  this  period  I  was  growing  more,  not  less 
radical ;  my  alienation  from  the  established 
order  was  almost  as  great  as  that  of  Thoreau, 
though  as  yet  I  knew  nothing  of  him  except 
through  "The  Dial." 

It  must  be  remembered  that  two  rather  dif 
ferent  elements  combined  to  make  up  the  so- 
called  Transcendentalist  body.  There  were  the 
more  refined  votaries,  who  were  indeed  the 
most  cultivated  people  of  that  time  and  place ; 
but  there  was  also  a  less  educated  contingent, 
known  popularly  as  "  Come-Outers,"  —  a  name 
then  as  familiar  and  distinctive  as  is  that  of  the 
Salvation  Army  to-day.  These  were  developed 
largely  by  the  anti-slavery  movement,  which 
was  not,  like  our  modern  civil  service  reform, 


THE  REARING   OF  A   REFORMER     115 

strongest  in  the  more  educated  classes,  but  was 
predominantly  a  people's  movement,  based  on 
the  simplest  human  instincts,  and  far  stronger 
for  a  time  in  the  factories  and  shoe-shops  than 
in  the  pulpits  or  colleges.  The  factories  were 
still  largely  worked  by  American  operatives,  and 
the  shoe  manufacture  was  carried  on  in  little 
shops,  where  the  neighbors  met  and  settled 
affairs  of  state,  as  may  be  read  in  Mr.  Row 
land  Robinson's  delightful  stories  called  "  Dan- 
vis  Folks."  Radicalism  went  with  the  smell 
of  leather,  and  was  especially  active  in  such 
towns  as  Lynn  and  Abington,  the  centres  of 
that  trade.  Even  the  least  educated  had  re 
cognized  it  in  the  form  of  the  Second  Advent 
delusion  just  then  flourishing.  All  these  influ 
ences  combined  to  make  the  Come-Outer  ele 
ment  very  noticeable,  —  it  being  fearless,  dis 
interested,  and  always  self-asserting.  It  was 
abundant  on  Cape  Cod,  and  the  "  Cape  Cod- 
ders"  were  a  recognized  subdivision  at  reform 
meetings.  In  such  meetings  or  conventions 
these  untaught  disciples  were  often  a  source  of 
obvious  inconvenience :  they  defied  chairmen, 
scaled  platforms,  out-roared  exhort ers.  Some 
of  them,  as  Emerson  says,  "devoted  themselves 
to  the  worrying  of  clergymen  ; "  proclaiming  a 
gospel  of  freedom,  I  have  heard  them  boast 
of  having  ascended  into  pulpits  and  trampled 


Ii6  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

across  their  cushions  before  horrified  ministers. 
This  was  not  a  protest  against  religion,  for 
they  were  rarely  professed  atheists,  but  against 
its  perversions  alone. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  the  visible 
church  in  New  England  was  not  then  the  prac 
tical  and  reformatory  body  which  it  is  to-day, 
—  the  change  in  the  Episcopal  Church  being 
the  most  noticeable  of  all,  —  but  that  it  devoted 
itself  very  largely  to  the  "  tithing  of  anise  and 
cummin,"  as  in  Scripture  times.  Of  the  re 
forms  prominent  before  the  people,  nearly  all 
had  originated  outside  the  pulpit  and  even 
among  avowed  atheists.  Thomas  Herttell,  a 
judge  of  the  Marine  Court  of  New  York  city, 
who  belonged  to  that  heretical  class,  was  the 
first  person  in  America,  apparently,  to  write 
and  print,  in  1819,  a  strong  appeal  in  behalf 
of  total  abstinence  as  the  only  remedy  for  in 
temperance;  and  the  same  man  made,  in  1837, 
in  the  New  York  Assembly,  the  first  effort  to 
secure  to  married  women  the  property  rights 
now  generally  conceded.  All  of  us  were  famil 
iar  with  the  vain  efforts  of  Garrison  to  enlist 
the  clergy  in  the  anti-slavery  cause ;  and  Ste 
phen  Foster,  one  of  the  stanchest  of  the  early 
Abolitionists,  habitually  spoke  of  them  as  "  the 
Brotherhood  of  Thieves."  Lawyers  and  doc 
tors,  too,  fared  hard  with  those. enthusiasts,  and 


THE   REARING   OF   A   REFORMER      117 

merchants  not  much  better;  Edward  Palmer 
writing  against  the  use  of  money,  and  even 
such  superior  men  as  Alcott  having  sometimes 
a  curious  touch  of  the  Harold  Skimpole  view  of 
that  convenience.  It  seems  now  rather  remark 
able  that  the  institution  of  marriage  did  not 
come  in  for  a  share  in  the  general  laxity,  but  it 
did  not ;  and  it  is  to  be  observed  that  Henry 
James  speaks  rather  scornfully  of  the  Brook 
Farm  community  in  this  respect,  as  if  its  mem 
bers  must  have  been  wanting  in  the  courage 
of  their  convictions  to  remain  so  unreasonably 
chaste.  I  well  remember  that  the  contrary 
was  predicted  and  expected  by  cynics,  and  the 
utter  failure  of  their  prophecies  was  the  best 
tribute  to  the  essential  purity  of  the  time.  It 
was,  like  all  seething  periods,  at  least  among 
the  Anglo-Saxon  race,  a  time  of  high  moral 
purpose ;  and  the  anti-slavery  movement,  reach 
ing  its  climax  after  the  passage  of  the  Fugitive 
Slave  Law,  was  about  to  bring  such  qualities 
to  a  test. 

This  agitation,  at  any  rate,  was  so  far  the 
leader  in  the  reforms  of  the  day  that  it  brought 
to  a  focus  all  their  picturesque  ingredients. 
There  were  women  who  sat  tranquilly  knitting 
through  a  whole  anti-slavery  convention,  how 
ever  exciting,  and  who  had  that  look  of  pro 
longed  and  self-controlled  patience  which  we 


n8  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

associate  with  Sisters  of  Charity ;  and  others 
who  bore  that  uplifted  and  joyous  serenity 
which  now  seems  a  part  of  the  discipline  of  the 
Salvation  lassies.  There  were  always  present 
those  whom  Emerson  tersely  classified  as  "  men 
with  beards ; "  this  style,  now  familiar,  being 
then  an  utter  novelty,  not  tolerated  in  business 
or  the  professions,  and  of  itself  a  committal 
to  pronounced  heresy.  Partly  as  a  result  of 
this  unwonted  adornment,  there  were  men  who 
—  as  is  indeed  noticed  in  European  Socialist 
meetings  to-day — bore  a  marked  resemblance 
to  the  accepted  pictures  of  Jesus  Christ.  This 
trait  was  carried  to  an  extent  which  the  news 
papers  called  "  blasphemous  "  in  Charles  Bur- 
leigh,  —  a  man  of  tall  figure,  benign  face,  and 
most  persuasive  tongue,  wearing  long  auburn 
curls  and  somewhat  tangled  tempestuous  beard. 
Lowell,  whose  own  bearded  condition  marked 
his  initiation  into  abolitionism,  used  to  be 
amused  when  he  went  about  with  Burleigh  and 
found  himself  jeered  at  as  a  new  and  still  fal 
tering  disciple.  Finally,  there  was  the  Hutch- 
inson  Family,  with  six  or  eight  tall  brothers 
clustered  around  the  one  rosebud  of  a  sister, 
Abby  :  all  natural  singers  and  one  might  say 
actors,  indeed  unconscious  poseurs,  easily  arous 
ing  torpid  conventions  with  "  The  Car  Emanci 
pation  "  and  such  stirring  melodies  ;  or  at  times, 


THE   REARING   OF   A   REFORMER     119 

when  encored,  giving  "  The  Bridge  of  Sighs," 
which  seemed  made  for  just  the  combination 
they  presented.  When,  in  this  song,  the  circle 
of  stalwart  youths  chanted,  "  Had  she  a  sister  ? " 
or  when  the  sweet  Abby,  looking  up  with  dove- 
like  eyes  at  her  guardians,  sang  in  response, 
"Or  had  she  a  brother?"  it  not  only  told  its 
own  story,  but  called  up  forcibly  the  infinite 
wrongs  of  the  slave  girls  who  had  no  such 
protectors,  and  who  perhaps  stood  at  that  very 
moment,  exposed  and  shrinking,  on  the  auction- 
block. 

On  removing  to  Newburyport  I  found  my 
self  at  once  the  associate  of  all  that  was  most 
reputable  in  the  town,  in  virtue  of  my  func 
tions  ;  and  also,  by  a  fatality  in  temperament, 
of  all  that  was  most  radical.  There  prevailed 
then  a  phrase,  "the  Sisterhood  of  Reforms," 
indicating  a  variety  of  social  and  physiological 
theories  of  which  one  was  expected  to  accept 
all,  if  any.  This  I  learned  soon  after  my  arrival, 
through  the  surprise  expressed  by  some  of  my 
more  radical  friends  at  my  unacquaintance  with 
a  certain  family  of  factory  operatives  known 
as  the  "  Briggs  girls."  "Not  know  the  Briggs 
girls  ?  I  should  think  you  would  certainly  know 
them.  Work  in  the  Globe  Mills  ;  interested  in 
all  the  reforms ;  bathe  in  cold  water  every 
morning  ;  one  of  'em  is  a  Grahamite," —  mean- 


120  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

ing  a  disciple  of  vegetarianism ;  that  faith  being 
then  a  conspicuous  part  of  "  the  Sisterhood  of 
Reforms,"  but  one  against  which  I  had  been 
solemnly  warned  by  William  Henry  Channing, 
who  had  made  experiment  of  it  while  living  as 
city  missionary  in  New  York  city.  He  had 
gone,  it  seemed,  to  a  boarding-house  of  the 
vegetarian  faithful  in  the  hope  of  finding  spirit 
ually  minded  associates,  but  was  so  woefully 
disappointed  in  the  result  that  he  left  them 
after  a  while,  falling  back  upon  the  world's 
people,  as  more  carnal,  possibly,  but  more  com 
panionable. 

Without  a  tithe  of  my  cousin's  eloquence,  I 
was  of  a  cooler  temperament,  and  perhaps  kept 
my  feet  more  firmly  on  the  earth  or  was  more 
guarded  in  my  experiments.  Yet  I  was  gradu 
ally  drawn  into  the  temperance  agitation,  in 
cluding  prohibition;  the  peace  movement,  for 
which,  I  dare  say,  I  pommeled  as  lustily  as 
Schramm's  pupils  in  Heine's  "  Reisebilder ;  " 
the  social  reform  debate,  which  was  sustained 
for  some  time  after  the  downfall  of  Brook 
Farm ;  and  of  course  the  woman's  rights  move 
ment,  for  whose  first  national  convention  I 
signed  the  call  in  1850.  Of  all  the  movements 
in  which  I  ever  took  part,  except  the  anti- 
slavery  agitation,  this  last-named  seems  to  me 
the  most  important ;  nor  have  I  ever  wavered 


THE   REARING   OF  A   REFORMER     121 

in  the  opinion  announced  by  Wendell  Phillips, 
that  it  is  "the  grandest  reform  yet  launched 
upon  the  century,  as  involving  the  freedom  of 
one  half  the  human  race."  Certainly  the  anti- 
slavery  movement,  which  was  by  its  nature  a 
more  temporary  one,  had  the  right  of  way,  and 
must  first  be  settled  ;  it  was,  moreover,  by  its 
nature  a  much  simpler  movement.  Once  re 
cognize  the  fact  that  man  could  have  no  right 
of  property  in  man,  and  the  whole  affair  was 
settled ;  there  was  nothing  left  but  to  agitate, 
and  if  needful  to  fight.  But  as  Stuart  Mill 
clearly  pointed  out,  the  very  fact  of  the  closer 
relations  of  the  sexes  had  complicated  the  affair 
with  a  thousand  perplexities  in  the  actual  work 
ing  out ;  gave  room  for  more  blunders,  more 
temporary  disappointments,  more  extravagant 
claims,  and  far  slower  development. 

It  was  in  one  respect  fortunate  that  most  of 
the  early  advocates  of  the  Woman  Suffrage 
reform  had  served  previously  as  Abolitionists, 
for  they  had  been  thereby  trained  to  courage 
and  self-sacrifice ;  but  it  was  in  other  respects 
unfortunate,  because  they  had  been  accustomed 
to  a  stem  and  simple  "  Thus  saith  the  Lord," 
which  proved  less  applicable  to  the  more  com 
plex  question.  When  it  came  to  the  point, 
the  alleged  aversion  of  the  slaves  to  freedom  al 
ways  vanished  ;  I  never  myself  encountered  an 


122  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

instance  of  it;  every  man,  woman,  and  child, 
whatever  protestations  might  have  been  made 
to  the  contrary,  was  eager  to  grasp  at  freedom ; 
whereas  in  all  communities  there  is  a  minority 
of  women  who  are  actively  opposed  to  each 
successive  step  in  elevating  their  condition, 
and  this  without  counting  the  merely  indiffer 
ent.  All  the  ordinary  objections  to  woman  suf 
frage,  as  that  women  have  not,  in  the  phrase  of 
old  Theophilus  Parsons,  "  a  sufficient  acquired 
discretion,"  or  that  they  are  too  impulsive,  or 
that  they  cannot  fight,  —  all  these  seem  to  me 
trivial ;  but  it  is  necessary  always  to  face  the 
fact  that  this  is  the  only  great  reform  in  which 
a  minority,  at  least,  of  the  very  persons  to  be 
benefited  are  working  actively  on  the  other 
side.  This,  to  my  mind,  only  confirms  its 
necessity,  as  showing  that,  as  Mill  says,  the 
very  nature  of  woman  has  been  to  some  extent 
warped  and  enfeebled  by  prolonged  subjugation, 
and  must  have  time  to  recover  itself. 

It  was  in  the  direction  of  the  anti- slavery 
reform,  however,  that  I  felt  the  most  immediate 
pricking  of  conscience,  and  it  may  be  interest 
ing,  as  a  study  of  the  period,  to  note  what 
brought  it  about.  There  was,  perhaps,  some 
tendency  that  way  in  the  blood,  for  I  rejoice  to 
recall  the  fact  that  after  Judge  Sewall,  in  1700, 
had  published  his  noted  tract  against  slavery, 


THE   REARING   OF   A   REFORMER     123 

called  "The  Selling  of  Joseph,"  the  first  protest 
against  slavery  in  Massachusetts,  he  himself  tes 
tified,  six  years  later,  "Amidst  the  frowns  and 
hard  words  I  have  met  with  for  this  Under 
taking,  it  is  no  small  refreshment  to  me  that  I 
can  have  the  Learned  Reverend  and  Aged  Mr. 
Higginson  for  my  Abetter."  This  was  my 
ancestor,  the  Rev.  John  Higginson,  of  Salem, 
then  ninety  years  old ;  but  my  own  strongest 
impulse  came  incidentally  from  my  mother.  It 
happened  that  my  father,  in  his  office  of  stew 
ard  of  the  college,  was  also  "  patron,"  as  it  was 
called,  having  charge  of  the  affairs  of  the  more 
distant  students,  usually  from  the  Southern 
States.  This  led  to  pleasant  friendships  with 
their  families,  and  to  occasional  visits  paid  by 
my  parents,  traveling  in  their  own  conveyance. 
Being  once  driven  from  place  to  place  by  an 
intelligent  negro  driver,  my  mother  said  to  him 
that  she  thought  him  very  well  situated,  after 
all;  on  which  he  turned  and  looked  at  her, 
simply  saying,  "  Ah,  missis !  free  breath  is 
good."  It  impressed  her  greatly,  and  she  put 
it  into  her  diary,  whence  my  eldest  brother,  Dr. 
Francis  John  Higginson,  quoted  it  in  a  little 
book  he  wrote,  "Remarks  on  Slavery,"  pub 
lished  in  1834.  This  fixed  it  in  my  mind,  and 
I  remember  to  have  asked  my  aunt  why  my 
uncle  in  Virginia  did  not  free  his  slaves.  She 


124  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

replied  that  they  loved  him,  and  would  be  sorry 
to  be  free.  This  did  not  satisfy  me ;  but  on 
my  afterward  visiting  the  Virginia  plantation, 
there  was  nothing  to  suggest  anything  undesir 
able  :  the  head  servant  was  a  grave  and  digni 
fied  man,  with  the  most  unexceptionable  man 
ners  ;  and  the  white  and  black  children  often 
played  together  in  the  afternoon.  It  was  then 
illegal  to  teach  a  slave  to  read,  but  one  girl  was 
pointed  out  who  had  picked  up  a  knowledge  of 
reading  while  the  white  children  were  learn 
ing.  The  slaves  seemed  merely  to  share  in  the 
kindly  and  rather  slipshod  methods  of  a  South 
ern  establishment ;  and  my  only  glimpse  of  the 
other  side  was  from  overhearing  conversation 
between  the  overseer  and  his  friends,  in  which 
all  the  domestic  relations  of  the  negroes  were 
spoken  of  precisely  as  if  they  had  been  animals. 
Returning  to  Cambridge,  I  found  the  whole 
feeling  of  the  college  strongly  opposed  to  the 
abolition  movement,  as  had  also  been  that 
among  my  Brookline  friends  and  kindred.  My 
uncle,  Mr.  Samuel  Perkins,  had  lived  in  Hayti 
during  the  insurrection,  and  had  written  an 
account  of  it  which  he  gave  me  to  read,  and 
which  was  afterwards  printed  by  Charles  Per 
kins  in  the  "  Proceedings  of  the  Massachusetts 
Historical  Society."  He  thought,  and  most  men 
of  his  class  firmly  believed,  that  any  step  to- 


THE   REARING  OF  A  REFORMER     125 

ward  emancipation  would  lead  to  instant  and 
formidable  insurrection.  It  was  in  this  sincere 
but  deluded  belief  that  such  men  mobbed  Gar 
rison.  When  I  once  spoke  with  admiration  of 
that  reformer  to  Mr.  Augustus  Aspinwall,  a 
frequent  guest  at  my  uncle's  house,  he  replied 
with  perfect  gentleness,  sipping  his  wine,  "  It 
may  be  as  you  say.  I  never  saw  him,  but  I 
always  supposed  him  to  be  a  fellow  who  ought 
to  be  hung."  Mr.  Aspinwall  was  a  beautiful 
old  man,  who  cultivated  the  finest  roses  to  be 
found  near  Boston ;  he  had  the  most  placid 
voice,  the  sweetest  courtesy,  and  the  most 
adamantine  opinions,  —  the  kind  of  man  who 
might  have  been  shot  in  the  doorway  of  his  own 
chateau  during  the  French  Revolution.  If  it 
had  come  in  his  way,  he  would  undoubtedly 
have  seen  Garrison  executed,  and  would  then 
have  gone  back  to  finish  clearing  his  roses  of 
snails  and  rose-beetles.  The  early  history  of 
the  anti-slavery  agitation  cannot  possibly  be  un 
derstood  unless  we  comprehend  this  class  of 
men  who  then  ruled  Boston  opinion. 

I  know  of  no  book  except  the  last  two  vol 
umes  of  Pierce's  "Life  of  Charles  Sumner" 
which  fully  does  justice  to  the  way  in  which 
the  anti-slavery  movement  drew  a  line  of  cleav 
age  through  all  Boston  society,  leaving  most 
of  the  more  powerful  or  wealthy  families  on  the 


126  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

conservative  side.  What  finally  determined  me 
in  the  other  direction  was  the  immediate  influ 
ence  of  two  books,  both  by  women.  One  of 
these  was  Miss  Martineau's  tract,  "  The  Martyr 
Age  in  America,"  portraying  the  work  of  the 
Abolitionists  with  such  force  and  eloquence 
that  it  seemed  as  if  no  generous  youth  could 
be  happy  in  any  other  company ;  and  the  other 
book  was  Mrs.  Lydia  Maria  Child's  "  Appeal 
for  that  Class  of  Americans  called  Africans." 
This  little  work,  for  all  its  cumbrous  title,  was 
so  wonderfully  clear,  compact,  and  convincing, 
it  covered  all  its  points  so  well  and  was  so  ab 
solutely  free  from  all  unfairness  or  shrill  invec 
tive,  that  it  joined  with  Miss  Martineau's  less 
modulated  strains  to  make  me  an  Abolitionist. 
This  was,  it  must  be  remembered,  some  years 
before  the  publication  of  "  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin." 
I  longed  to  be  counted  worthy  of  such  com 
panionship  ;  I  wrote  and  printed  a  rather  crude 
sonnet  to  Garrison ;  and  my  only  sorrow  was 
in  feeling  that,  as  Alexander  lamented  about 
his  father  Philip's  conquests,  nothing  had  been 
left  for  me  to  do.  Fortunately,  Lowell  had 
already  gone  far  in  the  same  direction,  under 
the  influence  of  his  wife ;  and  her  brother  Wil 
liam,  moreover,  who  had  been  for  a  time  my 
schoolmate,  had  left  all  and  devoted  himself  to 
anti-slavery  lecturing.  He  it  was  who,  when 


THE   REARING   OF  A  REFORMER      127 

on  a  tour  with  Frederick  Douglass  at  the  West, 
was  entertained  with  him  at  a  house  where 
there  was  but  one  spare  bed.  To  some  apolo 
gies  by  the  hostess  the  ever  ready  and  imperial 
Douglass  answered,  with  superb  dignity,  "  Do 
not  apologize,  madam ;  I  have  not  the  slightest 
prejudice  against  color." 

This  was  the  condition  of  things  then  prevail 
ing  around  Boston  ;  and  when  I  went  to  live 
in  Newburyport  the  same  point  of  view  soon 
presented  itself  in  another  form.  The  parish, 
which  at  first  welcomed  me,  counted  among  its 
strongest  supporters  a  group  of  retired  sea-cap 
tains  who  had  traded  with  Charleston  and  New 
Orleans,  and  more  than  one  of  whom  had  found 
himself  obliged,  after  sailing  from  a  Southern 
port,  to  put  back  in  order  to  eject  some  runa 
way  slave  from  his  lower  hold.  All  their  pre 
judices  ran  in  one  direction,  and  their  view  of 
the  case  differed  from  that  of  Boston  society 
only  as  a  rope's  end  differs  from  a  rapier.  One 
of  them,  perhaps  the  quietest,  was  the  very 
Francis  Todd  who  had  caused  the  imprison 
ment  of  Garrison  at  Baltimore.  It  happened, 
besides,  that  the  one  political  hero  and  favorite 
son  of  Newburyport,  Caleb  Cushing  —  for  of 
Garrison  himself  they  only  felt  ashamed  —  was 
at  that  moment  fighting  slavery's  battles  in  the 
Mexican  war.  It  now  seems  to  me  strange 


128  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

that,  under  all  these  circumstances,  I  held  my 
place  for  two  years  and  a  half.  Of  course  it 
cannot  be  claimed  that  I  showed  unvarying  tact ; 
indeed,  I  can  now  see  that  it  was  quite  other 
wise;  but  it  was  a  case  where  tact  counted  for 
little ;  in  fact,  I  think  my  sea-captains  did  not 
wholly  dislike  my  plainness  of  speech,  though 
they  felt  bound  to  discipline  it ;  and  moreover 
the  whole  younger  community  was  on  my  side. 
It  did  not  help  the  matter  that  I  let  myself 
be  nominated  for  Congress  by  the  new  "Free 
Soil"  party  in  1848,  and  "stumped  the  dis 
trict,"  though  in  a  hopeless  minority.  The 
nomination  was  Whittier's  doing,  partly  to  pre 
vent  that  party  from  nominating  him ;  and  he 
agreed  that,  by  way  of  reprieve,  I  should  go  to 
Lowell  and  induce  Josiah  G.  Abbott,  then  a 
young  lawyer,  to  stand  in  my  place.  Abbott's 
objection  is  worth  recording :  if  elected,  he 
said,  he  should  immediately  get  into  quarrels 
with  the  Southern  members  and  have  to  fight 
duels,  and  this  he  could  not  conscientiously  do. 
This  was  his  ground  of  exemption.  Years 
after,  when  he  was  an  eminent  judge  in  Boston 
and  a  very  conservative  Democrat,  I  once  re 
minded  him  of  this  talk,  and  he  said,  "  I  should 
feel  just  the  same  now." 

Having  been,  of  course,  defeated  for  Con 
gress,  as  I  had  simply  stood  in  a  gap,  I  lived  in 


THE   REARING   OF  A   REFORMER      129 

Newburyport  for  more  than  two  years  longer, 
after  giving  up  my  parish.  This  time  was 
spent  in  writing  for  newspapers,  teaching  pri 
vate  classes  in  different  studies,  serving  on  the 
school  committee  and  organizing  public  evening 
schools,  then  a  great  novelty.  The  place  was, 
and  is,  a  manufacturing  town,  and  I  had  a  large 
and  intelligent  class  of  factory  girls,  mostly 
American,  who  came  to  my  house  for  reading 
and  study  once  a  week.  In  this  work  I  en 
listed  a  set  of  young  maidens  of  unusual  ability, 
several  of  whom  were  afterward  well  known 
to  the  world  :  Harriet  Prescott,  afterward  Mrs. 
Spofford ;  Louisa  Stone,  afterward  Mrs.  Hop 
kins  (well  known  for  her  educational  writings) ; 
Jane  Andrews  (author  of  "The  Seven  Little 
Sisters,"  a  book  which  has  been  translated  into 
Chinese  and  Japanese) ;  her  sister  Caroline, 
afterward  Mrs.  Rufus  Leighton  (author  of 
"Life  at  Puget  Sound,")  and  others  not  their 
inferiors,  though  their  names  were  not  to  be 
found  in  print.  I  have  never  encountered  else 
where  so  noteworthy  a  group  of  young  women, 
and  all  that  period  of  work  is  a  delightful 
reminiscence.  My  youthful  coadjutors  had 
been  trained  in  a  remarkably  good  school,  the 
Putnam  Free  School,  kept  by  William  H. 
Wells,  a  celebrated  teacher ;  and  I  had  his 
hearty  cooperation,  and  also  that  of  Professor 


130  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

Alpheus  Crosby,  one  of  the  best  scholars  in 
New  England,  and  then  resident  in  Newbury- 
port.  With  his  aid  I  established  a  series  of 
prizes  for  the  best  prose  and  poetry  written  by 
the  young  people  of  the  town ;  and  the  first 
evidence  given  of  the  unusual  talents  of  Harriet 
Prescott  Spofford  was  in  a  very  daring  and  ori 
ginal  essay  on  Hamlet,  written  at  sixteen,  and 
gaining  the  first  prize.  I  had  also  to  do  with 
the  courses  of  lectures  and  concerts,  and  super 
intended  the  annual  Floral  Processions  which 
were  then  a  pretty  feature  of  the  Fourth  of 
July  in  Essex  County.  On  the  whole,  per 
haps,  I  was  as  acceptable  a  citizen  of  the  town 
as  could  be  reasonably  expected  of  one  who 
had  preached  himself  out  of  his  pulpit. 

I  supposed  myself  to  have  given  up  preach 
ing  forever,  and  recalled  the  experience  of  my 
ancestor,  the  Puritan  divine,  Francis  Higgin- 
son,  who,  when  he  had  left  his  church-living  at 
Leicester,  England,  in  1620,  continued  to  lecture 
to  all  comers.  But  a  new  sphere  of  reform 
atory  action  opened  for  me  in  an  invitation 
to  take  charge  of  the  Worcester  Free  Church, 
the  first  of  several  such  organizations  that 
sprang  up  about  that  time  under  the  influence 
of  Theodore  Parker's  Boston  society,  which  was 
their  prototype.  These  organizations  were  all 
more  or  less  of  the  "  Jerusalem  wildcat "  de- 


THE   REARING   OF  A  REFORMER     131 

scription  —  this  being  the  phrase  by  which  a 
Lynn  shoemaker  described  one  of  them  —  with 
no  church  membership  or  communion  service, 
not  calling  themselves  specifically  Christian, 
but  resembling  the  ethical  societies  of  the  pre 
sent  day,  with  a  shade  more  of  specifically  reli 
gious  aspect.  Worcester  was  at  that  time  a 
seething  centre  of  all  the  reforms,  and  I  found 
myself  almost  in  fashion,  at  least  with  the  un 
fashionable;  my  evening  congregations  were 
the  largest  in  the  city,  and  the  men  and  women 
who  surrounded  me  —  now  almost  all  passed 
away  —  were  leaders  in  public  movements  in 
that  growing  community.  Before  my  transfer, 
however,  I  went  up  to  Boston  on  my  first  fugi 
tive  slave  foray,  as  it  might  be  called,  —  not  the 
Anthony  Burns  affair,  but  the  Thomas  Sims 
case,  which  preceded  it,  and  which  was  to  teach 
me,  once  for  all,  that  there  was  plenty  left  to 
be  done,  and  that  Philip  had  not  fought  all  the 
battles. 


THE  FUGITIVE  SLAVE  EPOCH 

"I  canna  think  the  preacher  himself  wad  be  heading  the  mob, 
tho'  the  time  has  been  they  have  been  as  forward  in  a  bruilzie  as 
their  neighbors."—  SCOTT'S  The  Heart  of  Mid-Lothian. 

NOTHING  did  more  to  strengthen  my  anti- 
slavery  zeal,  about  1848,  than  the  frequent  in 
tercourse  with  Whittier  and  his  household, 
made  possible  by  their  nearness  to  Newbury- 
port.  It  was  but  a  short  walk  or  drive  of  a  few 
miles  from  my  residence  to  his  home ;  or,  better 
still,  it  implied  a  sail  or  row  up  the  beautiful 
river,  passing  beneath  the  suspension  bridge  at 
Deer  Island,  to  where  the  woods  called  "  The 
Laurels"  spread  themselves  on  one  side,  and 
the  twin  villages  of  Salisbury  and  Amesbury 
on  the  other.  There  was  something  delightful 
in  the  position  of  the  poet  among  the  village 
people :  he  was  their  pride  and  their  joy,  yet 
he  lived  as  simply  as  any  one,  was  careful  and 
abstemious,  reticent  rather  than  exuberant  in 
manner,  and  met  them  wholly  on  matter-of-fact 
ground.  He  could  sit  on  a  barrel  and  discuss  the 
affairs  of  the  day  with  the  people  who  came  to 


THE   FUGITIVE   SLAVE   EPOCH        133 

the  "  store,"  but  he  did  not  read  them  his  verses. 
I  was  once  expressing  regrets  for  his  ill  health, 
in  talking  with  one  of  the  leading  citizens  of 
Amesbury,  and  found  that  my  companion  could 
not  agree  with  me ;  he  thought  that  Whittier's 
ill  health  had  helped  him  in  the  end,  for  it  had 
"kept  him  from  engaging  in  business,"  and  had 
led  him  to  writing  poetry,  which  had  given  him 
reputation  outside  of  the  town.  That  poetry 
was  anything  but  a  second  choice,  perhaps  a  ne 
cessary  evil,  did  not  seem  to  have  occurred  to 
my  informant.  Had  he  himself  lost  his  health 
and  been  unable  to  sell  groceries,  who  knows 
but  he  too  might  have  taken  up  with  the  Muses  ? 
It  suggested  the  Edinburgh  citizen  who  thought 
that  Sir  Walter  Scott  might  have  been  "  sic  a 
respectable  mon  "  had  he  stuck  to  his  original 
trade  of  law  advocate. 

To  me,  who  sought  Whittier  for  his  poetry 
as  well  as  his  politics,  nothing  could  have  been 
more  delightful  than  his  plain  abode  with  its 
exquisite  Quaker  neatness.  His  placid  mother, 
rejoicing  in  her  two  gifted  children,  presided 
with  few  words  at  the  hospitable  board  whose 
tablecloth  and  napkins  rivaled  her  soul  in  white 
ness  ;  and  with  her  was  the  brilliant  "  Lizzie," 
so  absolutely  the  reverse,  or  complement,  of 
her  brother  that  they  seemed  between  them  to 
make  one  soul.  She  was  as  plain  in  feature  as 


I34  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

he  was  handsome,  except  that  she  had  a  pair  of 
great  luminous  dark  eyes,  always  flashing  with 
fun  or  soft  with  emotion,  and  often  changing  with 
lightning  rapidity  from  one  expression  to  an 
other  ;  her  nose  was  large  and  aquiline,  while  his 
was  almost  Grecian,  and  she  had  odd  motions  of 
the  head,  so  that  her  glances  seemed  shot  at  you, 
like  sudden  javelins,  from  each  side  of  a  promi 
nent  outwork.  Her  complexion  was  sallow,  not 
rich  brunette  like  his;  and  whereas  he  spoke 
seldom  and  with  some  difficulty,  her  gay  rail 
lery  was  unceasing,  and  was  enjoyed  by  him  as 
much  as  by  anybody,  so  that  he  really  appeared 
to  have  transferred  to  her  the  expression  of  his 
own  opinions.  The  lively  utterances  thus  came 
with  double  force  upon  the  auditor,  and  he 
could  not  fail  to  go  out  strengthened  and  stim 
ulated.  Sometimes  the  Whittiers  had  guests ; 
and  "  Lizzie  "  delighted  to  tell  how  their  mother 
was  once  met  at  the  door  by  two  plump  maidens 
who  announced  that  they  had  come  from  Ohio 
mainly  to  see  her  son.  She  explained  that  he 
was  in  Boston.  No  matter  ;  they  would  come 
in  and  await  his  return.  But  he  might  be 
away  a  week.  No  matter ;  they  would  willingly 
wait  that  time  for  such  a  pleasure.  So  in  they 
came.  They  proved  to  be  Alice  and  Phoebe 
Gary,  whose  earlier  poems,  which  had  already 
preceded  them,  were  rilled  with  dirges  and  de- 


THE   FUGITIVE   SLAVE   EPOCH        135 

spair  ;  but  they  were  the  merriest  of  house 
mates,  and  as  the  poet  luckily  returned  next 
day,  they  stayed  as  long  as  they  pleased,  and 
were  welcome. 

The  invigorating  influence  of  the  Whittier 
household  supplied  the  tonic  needed  in  those 
trying  days.  The  Fugitive  Slave  Law  had 
just  passed,  and  a  year  or  two  after  Garrison 
had  proudly  showed  a  row  of  escaped  negroes 
sitting  on  the  platform  of  an  anti-slavery  con 
vention,  and  had  defied  the  whole  South  to 
reclaim  them,  these  very  men  were  fleeing 
to  Canada  for  their  lives.  When  the  storm 
rirst  broke,  on  February  15,  1851,  in  the  arrest 
of  Shadrach,  Boston  had  a  considerable  col 
ored  population,  which  handled  his  rescue  with 
such  unexpected  skill  and  daring  that  it  almost 
seemed  as  if  Garrison  were  right ;  yet  it  took 
but  a  few  days  for  their  whole  force  to  be  scat 
tered  to  the  winds.  The  exact  story  of  the  Sha 
drach  rescue  has  never  been  written.  The 
account  which  appears  most  probable  is  that 
on  the  day  of  the  arraignment  of  the  alleged 
fugitive,  the  fact  was  noted  in  a  newspaper  by 
a  colored  man  of  great  energy  and  character, 
employed  by  a  firm  in  Boston  and  utterly  un 
connected  with  the  Abolitionists.  He  asked 
leave  of  absence,  and  strolled  into  the  Court- 
House.  Many  colored  men  were  at  the  door  and 


I36  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

had  been  excluded ;  but  he,  being  known  and 
trusted,  was  admitted,  and  the  others,  making  a 
rush,  followed  in  behind  him  with  a  hubbub  of 
joking  and  laughter.  There  were  but  a  few 
constables  on  duty,  and  it  suddenly  struck  this 
leader,  as  he  and  his  followers  passed  near  the 
man  under  arrest,  that  they  might  as  well  keep 
on  and  pass  out  at  the  opposite  door,  taking 
among  them  the  man  under  arrest,  who  was 
not  handcuffed.  After  a  moment's  beckoning 
the  prisoner  saw  his  opportunity,  fell  in  with 
the  jubilant  procession,  and  amid  continued  up 
roar  was  got  outside  the  Court-House,  when  the 
crowd  scattered  in  all  directions. 

It  was  an  exploit  which,  as  has  been  well 
said,  would  hardly  have  furnished  a  press  item 
had  it  been  the  case  of  a  pickpocket,  yet  was 
treated  at  Washington  as  if  it  had  shaken  the 
nation.  Daniel  Webster  called  it  "a  case  of 
treason ; "  President  Fillmore  issued  a  special 
proclamation ;  and  Henry  Clay  gave  notice  of 
a  bill  to  lend  added  strength  to  the  Fugitive 
Slave  Law,  so  as  to  settle  the  question  "  whether 
the  government  of  white  men  is  to  be  yielded 
to  a  government  of  blacks."  More  curious 
even  than  this  was  the  development  of  anti- 
slavery  ethics  that  followed.  The  late  Rich 
ard  H.  Dana,  the  counsel  for  various  persons 
arrested  as  accomplices  in  the  rescue  of  Sha- 


THE   FUGITIVE   SLAVE   EPOCH        137 

drach,  used  to  tell  with  delight  this  tale  of  a 
juryman  impaneled  on  that  trial.  To  Dana's 
great  surprise,  the  jury  had  disagreed  concern 
ing  one  client  who  had  been  charged  with  aid 
ing  in  the  affair  and  whose  conviction  he  had 
fully  expected  ;  and  this  surprise  was  all  the 
greater  because  new  and  especial  oaths  had  been 
administered  to  the  jurymen,  pledging  them  to 
have  no  conscientious  scruples  against  convict 
ing,  so  that  it  seemed  as  if  every  one  with  a 
particle  of  anti- slavery  sympathy  must  have 
been  ruled  out.  Years  after,  Dana  encountered 
by  accident  the  very  juryman  —  a  Concord 
blacksmith  —  whose  obstinacy  had  saved  his 
client ;  and  learned  that  this  man's  unalterable 
reason  for  refusing  to  condemn  was  that  he 
himself  had  taken  a  hand  in  the  affair,  inasmuch 
as  he  had  driven  Shadrach,  after  his  rescue, 
from  Concord  to  Sudbury.1 

I  fear  I  must  admit  that  while  it  would  have 
been  a  great  pleasure  to  me  to  have  lent  a 
hand  in  the  Shadrach  affair,  the  feeling  did  not 
come  wholly  from  moral  conviction,  but  from  an 

1  Sec  Adams's  Life  of  Dana,  i.  217.  The  story  there  is  re 
lated  from  Mr.  Adams's  recollection,  which  differs  in  several 
respects  from  my  own,  as  to  the  way  in  which  Dana  used  to 
tell  it.  Possibly,  as  with  other  good  raconteurs,  the  details 
may  have  varied  a  little  as  time  went  on.  I  write  with 
two  MS.  narratives  before  me,  both  from  well-known  Con 
cord  men. 


138  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

impulse  perhaps  hereditary  in  the  blood.  Prob 
ably  I  got  from  my  two  soldier  and  sailor  grand 
fathers  an  intrinsic  love  of  adventure  which 
haunted  me  in  childhood,  and  which  three 
score  and  fourteen  years  have  by  no  means 
worn  out.  So  far  as  I  can  now  analyze  it,  this 
early  emotion  was  not  created  by  the  wish  for 
praise  alone,  but  was  mainly  a  boyish  desire  for 
a  stirring  experience.  No  man  so  much  excited 
my  envy  during  my  whole  college  life  as  did  a 
reckless  Southern  law  student,  named  Winfield 
Scott  Belton,  who,  when  the  old  Vassall  House 
in  Cambridge  was  all  in  flames,  and  the  fire 
men  could  not  reach  the  upper  story  with  their 
ladders,  suddenly  appeared  from  within  at  an 
attic  window,  amid  the  smoke,  and  pointed  out 
to  them  the  way  to  follow.  Like  most  boys, 
I  had  a  passion  for  fires  ;  but  after  this  the  tro 
phies  of  Belton  would  not  suffer  me  to  sleep, 
and  I  often  ran  miles  towards  a  light  in  the  hori 
zon.  But  the  great  opportunity  never  occurs 
twice,  and  the  nearest  I  ever  came  to  it  was  in 
being  one  of  several  undergraduates  to  bring 
the  elder  Professor  Henry  Ware  out  of  his 
burning  house.  It  was  not  much  of  a  feat,  — 
we  afterwards  risked  ourselves  a  great  deal 
more  to  bring  some  trays  of  pickle-jars  from 
the  cellar,  —  but  in  the  case  of  the  venerable 
doctor  the  object  was  certainly  worth  all  it  cost 


THE   FUGITIVE   SLAVE   EPOCH        139 

us  ;  for  he  was  the  progenitor  of  that  admirable 
race  upon  which,  as  Dr.  Holmes  said  to  Pro 
fessor  Stowe,  the  fall  of  Adam  had  not  left  the 
slightest  visible  impression. 

This  combination  of  motives  was  quite 
enough  to  make  me  wish  that  if  there  should 
be  another  fugitive  slave  case  I  might  at  least 
be  there  to  see,  and,  joining  the  Vigilance  Com 
mittee  in  Boston,  I  waited  for  such  an  occa 
sion.  It  was  not  necessary  to  wait  long,  for 
the  Shadrach  case  was  soon  to  be  followed  by 
another.  One  day  in  April,  1851,  a  messen 
ger  came  to  my  house  in  Newburyport  and 
said  briefly,  "  Another  fugitive  slave  is  arrested 
in  Boston,  and  they  wish  you  to  come."  I 
went  back  with  him  that  afternoon,  and  found 
the  Vigilance  Committee  in  session  in  the 
"  Liberator  "  office.  It  is  impossible  to  conceive 
of  a  set  of  men,  personally  admirable,  yet  less 
fitted  on  the  whole  than  this  committee  to  un 
dertake  any  positive  action  in  the  direction  of 
forcible  resistance  to  authorities.  In  the  first 
place,  half  of  them  were  non-resistants,  as  was 
their  great  leader,  Garrison,  who  stood  com 
posedly  by  his  desk  preparing  his  next  week's 
editorial,  and  almost  exasperating  the  more  hot 
headed  among  us  by  the  placid  way  in  which 
he  looked  beyond  the  rescue  of  an  individual  to 
the  purifying  of  a  nation.  On  the  other  hand, 


140 


CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 


the  "political  Abolitionists,"  or  Free-Soilers, 
while  personally  full  of  indignation,  were  ex 
tremely  anxious  not  to  be  placed  for  one  mo 
ment  outside  the  pale  of  good  citizenship.  The 
fr^y  persons  to  be  relied  upon  for  action  were 
a  fe^  whose  temperament  prevailed  over  the 
restrictioss^of  non-resistance  on  the  one  side, 
and  of  politics"  on  the  other ;  but  of  course 
their  discussion  was  constantly  damped  by  the 
attitude  of  the  rest.  All  this  would  not,  how 
ever,  apply  to  the  negroes,  it  might  well  seem ; 
they  had  just  proved  their  mettle,  and  would 
doubtless  do  it  again.  On  my  saying  this  in 
the  meeting,  Lewis  Hayden,  the  leading  negro 
in  Boston,  nodded  cordially  and  said,  "Of 
course  they  will."  Soon  after,  drawing  me 
aside,  he  startled  me  by  adding,  "  I  said  that 
for  bluff,  you  know.  We  do  not  wish  any  one 
to  know  how  really  weak  we  are.  Practically 
there  are  no  colored  men  in  Boston ;  the  Sha- 
drach  prosecutions  have  scattered  them  all. 
What  is  to  be  done  must  be  done  without 
them."  Here  was  a  blow  indeed ! 

What  was  to  be  done  ?  The  next  day  showed 
that  absolutely  nothing  could  be  accomplished 
in  the  court-room.  There  were  one  or  two 
hundred  armed  policemen  in  and  around  the 
Court-House.  Only  authorized  persons  could 
get  within  ten  feet  of  the  building,  Chains 


THE  FUGITIVE   SLAVE   EPOCH        141 

were  placed  across  the  doors,  and  beneath  these 
even  the  judges,  entering,  had  to  stoop.  The 
United  States  court-room  was  up  two  high  and 
narrow  flights  of  stairs.  Six  men  were  at  the 
door  of  the  court-room.  The  prisoner,  a  slender 
boy  of  seventeen,  sat  with  two  strong  men  on 
each  side  and  five  more  in  the  seat  behind  him, 
while  none  but  his  counsel  could  approach  him 
in  front.  (All  this  I  take  from  notes  made  at 
the  time.)  The  curious  thing  was  that  although 
there  was  a  state  law  of  1843  prohibiting  every 
Massachusetts  official  from  taking  any  part  in 
the  restoration  of  a  fugitive  slave,  yet  nearly 
all  these  employees  were  Boston  policemen,  act 
ing,  so  the  city  marshal  told  me,  under  orders 
from  the  mayor  and  aldermen.  Under  these 
circumstances  there  was  clearly  nothing  to  be 
done  at  the  trial  itself.  And  yet  all  sorts  of 
fantastic  and  desperate  projects  crossed  the 
minds  of  those  few  among  us  who  really,  so  to 
speak,  meant  business.  I  remember  consult 
ing  Ellis  Gray  Loring,  the  most  eminent  lawyer 
among  the  Abolitionists,  as  to  the  possibility 
of  at  least  gaining  time  by  making  away  with 
the  official  record  from  the  Southern  court,  a 
document  which  lay  invitingly  at  one  time 
among  lawyers'  papers  on  the  table.  Again,  I 
wrote  a  letter  to  my  schoolmate  Charles  Devens, 
the  United  States  marshal,  imploring  him  to 


142  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

resign  rather  than  be  the  instrument  of  send 
ing  a  man  into  bondage,  —  a  thing  actually 
done  by  one  of  the  leading  Boston  policemen. 
It  is  needless  to  say  to  those  who  knew  him 
that  he  answered  courteously  and  that  he  re 
served  his  decision.  No  other  chance  opening, 
it  seemed  necessary  to  turn  all  attention  to  an 
actual  rescue  of  the  prisoner  from  his  place  of 
confinement.  Like  Shadrach,  Thomas  Sims  was 
not  merely  tried  in  the  United  States  Court- 
House,  but  imprisoned  there,  because  the  state 
jail  was  not  opened  to  him  ;  he  not  having  been 
arrested  under  any  state  law,  and  the  United 
States  having  no  jail  in  Boston.  In  the  previ 
ous  case,  an  effort  had  been  made  to  obtain 
permission  to  confine  the  fugitive  slave  at  the 
Navy  Yard,  but  Commodore  Downes  had  re 
fused.  Sims,  therefore,  like  Shadrach,  was  kept 
at  the  Court-House.  Was  it  possible  to  get  him 
out? 

There  was  on  Tuesday  evening  a  crowded 
meeting  at  Tremont  Temple,  at  which  Horace 
Mann  presided.  I  hoped  strongly  that  some 
result  might  come  from  this  meeting,  and  made 
a  vehement  speech  there  myself,  which,  as  Dr. 
Samuel  Gridley  Howe  honored  me  by  saying, 
was  bringing  the  community  to  the  verge  of 
revolution,  when  a  lawyer  named  Charles  Mayo 
Ellis  protested  against  its  tone,  and  threw  cold 


THE   FUGITIVE   SLAVE   EPOCH        143 

water  upon  all  action.  It  was  evident  that  if 
anything  was  done,  it  must  be  done  by  a  very 
few.  I  looked  round,  during  the  meeting,  for 
a  band  of  twenty-five  men  from  Marlborough, 
who  had  seemed  to  me  to  show  more  fighting 
quality  than  the  rest,  but  they  had  probably 
gone  home.  Under  this  conviction  half  a  dozen 
of  us  formed  the  following  plan.  The  room 
where  Sims  was  confined,  being  safe  by  reason 
of  its  height  from  the  ground,  had  no  gratings 
at  the  windows.  The  colored  clergyman  of 
Boston,  Mr.  Grimes,  who  alone  had  the  opportu 
nity  to  visit  Sims,  agreed  to  arrange  with  him 
that  at  a  specified  hour  that  evening  he  should 
go  to  a  certain  window,  as  if  for  air,  —  for  he 
had  the  freedom  of  the  room,  —  and  should 
spring  out  on  mattresses  which  we  were  to 
bring  from  a  lawyer's  office  across  the  way; 
we  also  providing  a  carriage  in  which  to  place 
him.  All  was  arranged, — the  message  sent, 
the  mattresses  ready,  the  carriage  engaged  as 
if  for  an  ordinary  purpose  ;  and  behold  !  in  the 
dusk  of  that  evening,  two  of  us,  strolling  through 
Court  Square,  saw  men  busily  at  work  fitting 
iron  bars  across  this  safe  third-story  window. 
Whether  we  had  been  betrayed,  or  whether  it 
was  simply  a  bit  of  extraordinary  precaution, 
we  never  knew.  Colonel  Montgomery,  an  ex 
perienced  guerrilla  in  Kansas,  used  to  say,  "It 


144  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

is  always  best  to  take  for  granted  that  your 
opponent  is  at  least  as  smart  as  you  yourself 
are."  This,  evidently,  we  had  not  done. 

I  knew  that  there  was  now  no  chance  of  the 
rescue  of  Sims.  The  only  other  plan  that  had 
been  suggested  was  that  we  should  charter  a 
vessel,  place  it  in  charge  of  Austin  Bearse,  a 
Cape  Cod  sea-captain  and  one  of  our  best  men, 
and  take  possession  of  the  brig  Acorn,  on 
which  Sims  was  expected  to  be  placed.  This 
project  was  discussed  at  a  small  meeting  in 
Theodore  Parker's  study,  and  was  laid  aside  as 
impracticable,  not  because  it  was  piracy,  but 
because  there  was  no  absolute  certainty  that 
the  fugitive  would  be  sent  South  in  that  pre 
cise  way.  As  no  other  plan  suggested  itself, 
and  as  I  had  no  wish  to  look  on,  with  my  hands 
tied,  at  the  surrender,  I  went  back  to  my  home 
in  deep  chagrin.  The  following  extract  from  a 
journal  written  soon  after  is  worth  preserving 
as  an  illustration  of  that  curious  period  :  — 

"It  left  me  with  the  strongest  impressions 
of  the  great  want  of  preparation,  on  our  part, 
for  this  revolutionary  work.  Brought  up  as 
we  have  all  been,  it  takes  the  whole  experience 
of  one  such  case  to  educate  the  mind  to  the 
attitude  of  revolution.  It  is  so  strange  to  find 
one's  self  outside  of  established  institutions; 
to  be  obliged  to  lower  one's  voice  and  conceal 


THE   FUGITIVE   SLAVE   EPOCH        145 

one's  purposes ;  to  see  law  and  order,  police 
and  military,  on  the  wrong  side,  and  find  good 
citizenship  a  sin  and  bad  citizenship  a  duty, 
that  it  takes  time  to  prepare  one  to  act  coolly 
and  wisely,  as  well  as  courageously,  in  such  an 
emergency.  Especially  this  is  true  among 
reformers,  who  are  not  accustomed  to  act  ac 
cording  to  fixed  rules  and  observances,  but  to 
strive  to  do  what  seems  to  themselves  best, 
without  reference  to  others.  The  Vigilance 
Committee  meetings  were  a  disorderly  conven 
tion,  each  man  having  his  own  plan  or  theory, 
perhaps  stopping  even  for  anecdote  or  disqui 
sition,  when  the  occasion  required  the  utmost 
promptness  of  decision  and  the  most  unflinch 
ing  unity  in  action.  .  .  .  Our  most  reliable  men 
were  non-resistants,  and  some  who  were  other 
wise  were  the  intensest  visionaries.  Wendell 
Phillips  was  calm  and  strong  throughout ;  I 
never  saw  a  finer  gleam  in  his  eyes  than  when 
drawing  up  that  stirring  handbill  at  the  anti- 
slavery  office." 

During  the  months  which  followed,  I  at 
tended  anti-slavery  conventions  ;  wrote  editori 
ally  for  the  newly  established  "  Commonwealth," 
the  Boston  organ  of  the  Free  Soil  party ;  and 
had  also  a  daily  "  Independent  Column  "  of  my 
own  in  the  "  Newburyport  Union,"  a  liberal 
Democratic  paper.  No  other  fugitive  slave 


I46  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

case  occurred  in  New  England  for  three  years. 
The  mere  cost  in  money  of  Sims' s  surrender 
had  been  vast ;  the  political  results  had  been 
the  opposite  of  what  was  intended,  for  the  elec 
tion  of  Charles  Sumner  to  the  United  States 
Senate  practically  followed  from  it.  The  whole 
anti-slavery  feeling  at  the  North  was  obviously 
growing  stronger,  yet  there  seemed  a  period 
of  inaction  all  round,  or  of  reliance  on  ordi 
nary  political  methods  in  the  contest.  In  1852  I 
removed  to  Worcester,  into  a  strong  anti-slavery 
community  of  which  my  "Free  Church"  was 
an  important  factor.  Fugitives  came  some 
times  to  the  city,  and  I  have  driven  them  at 
midnight  to  the  farm  of  the  veteran  Abolition 
ists,  Stephen  and  Abby  Kelley  Foster,  in  the 
suburbs  of  the  city.  Perhaps  the  most  curious 
case  with  which  we  had  to  deal  was  that  of  a 
pretty  young  woman,  apparently  white,  with 
two  perfectly  white  children,  all  being  con 
signed  to  me  by  the  Rev.  Samuel  May,  then 
secretary  of  the  Boston  Anti-Slavery  Society, 
and  placed  by  him,  for  promptness  of  trans 
portation  to  Worcester,  under  the  escort  of  a 
Worcester  merchant,  thoroughly  pro-slavery  in 
sympathy,  and  not  having  the  slightest  concep 
tion  that  he  was  violating  the  laws  in  finding  a 
seat  for  his  charge  and  holding  the  baby  on  his 
knee.  We  had  them  in  our  care  all  winter. 


THE   FUGITIVE   SLAVE   EPOCH        147 

It  was  one  of  those  cases  of  romantic  incident 
which  slavery  yielded.  She  was  the  daughter 
of  her  former  master,  and  was  the  mistress  of 
her  present  owner,  her  half-brother ;  she  could 
scarcely  read  and  write,  but  was  perfectly  lady 
like,  modest,  and  grateful.  She  finally  married 
a  tradesman  near  Boston,  who  knew  her  story, 
and  she  disappeared  in  the  mass  of  white  popu 
lation,  where  we  were  content  to  leave  her 
untraced. 

All  this  minor  anti-slavery  work  ended  when, 
on  Thursday  evening,  May  25,  1854,  I  had  a 
letter  by  private  messenger  from  the  same 
Samuel  May  just  mentioned,  saying  that  a 
slave  had  been  arrested,  and  the  case  was  to 
be  heard  on  Saturday  morning ;  that  a  meet 
ing  was  to  be  held  on  Friday  evening  at  Fan- 
euil  Hall,  and  it  was  important  that  Worcester 
should  be  well  represented.  Mr.  A.  B.  Alcott 
also  came  thither  on  the  same  errand.  I  sent 
messages  to  several  persons,  and  especially  to 
a  man  of  remarkable  energy,  named  Martin 
Stowell,  who  had  taken  part  in  a  slave  rescue 
at  Syracuse,  New  York,  urging  them  to  follow 
at  once.  Going  to  Boston  on  the  morning 
train,  I  found  myself  presently  in  a  meeting  of 
the  Vigilance  Committee,  not  essentially  dif 
ferent  from  those  which  had  proved  so  disap 
pointing  three  years  before.  There  was  not 


148  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

only  no  plan  of  action,  but  no  set  purpose  of 
united  action.  This  can  be  imagined  when  I 
say  that  at  one  moment  when  there  seemed 
a  slight  prospect  of  practical  agreement,  some 
one  came  in  to  announce  that  Suttle  and  his 
men,  the  slave-catchers,  were  soon  to  pass  by, 
and  proposed  that  we  should  go  out  and  gaze 
at  them,  "pointing  the  finger  of  scorn,"  —  as  if 
Southern  slave-catchers  were  to  be  combated 
by  such  weapons.  This,  however,  had  an  effect 
in  so  far  that  the  general  committee  adjourned, 
letting  those  alone  remain  who  were  willing  to 
act  personally  in  forcible  resistance.  This  re 
duced  our  sixty  down  to  thirty,  of  whom  I  was 
chosen  chairman.  Dr.  Howe  was  then  called 
on  to  speak,  and  gave  some  general  advice, 
very  good  and  spirited.  Two  things  were  re 
solved  on, — to  secure  the  names  of  those  will 
ing  to  act,  and  to  have  definite  leadership. 
One  leader  would  have  been  best,  but  we  had 
not  quite  reached  that  point,  so  an  executive 
committee  of  six  was  chosen  at  last,  —  Phillips, 
Parker,  Howe,  Kemp  (an  energetic  Irishman), 
Captain  Bearse,*and  myself  ;  Stowell  was  added 
to  these  at  my  request.  Even  then  it  was  in 
conceivably  difficult  to  get  the  names  of  as 
many  as  twenty  who  would  organize  and  obey 
orders.  The  meeting  adjourned  till  afternoon, 
when  matters  were  yet  worse,  —  mere  talk  and 


THE   FUGITIVE   SLAVE   EPOCH        149 

discussion ;  but  it  seemed  to  me,  at  least,  that 
something  must  be  done  ;  better  a  failure  than 
to  acquiesce  tamely  as  before,  and  see  Massa 
chusetts  henceforward  made  a  hunting-ground 
for  fugitive  slaves. 

All  hopes  now  rested  on  Stowell,  who  was 
to  arrive  from  Worcester  at  six  p.  M.  I  met 
him  at  the  train,  and  walked  up  with  him.  He 
heard  the  condition  of  affairs,  and  at  once  sug 
gested  a  new  plan  as  the  only  thing  feasible. 
The  man  must  be  taken  from  the  Court-House. 
It  could  not  be  done  in  cold  blood,  but  the 
effort  must  have  behind  it  the  momentum  of 
a  public  meeting,  such  as  was  to  be  held  at 
Faneuil  Hall  that  night.  An  attack  at  the 
end  of  the  meeting  would  be  hopeless,  for 
the  United  States  marshal  would  undoubtedly 
be  looking  for  just  that  attempt,  and  would  be 
reinforced  accordingly  ;  this  being,  as  we  after 
wards  found,  precisely  what  that  official  was 
planning.  Could  there  not  be  an  attack  at  the 
very  height  of  the  meeting,  brought  about  in 
this  way  ?  Let  all  be  in  readiness  ;  let  a  picked 
body  be  distributed  near  the  Court  House  and 
Square;  then  send  some  loud-voiced  speaker, 
who  should  appear  in  the  gallery  of  Faneuil 
Hall  and  announce  that  there  was  a  mob  of 
negroes  already  attacking  the  Court-House; 
let  a  speaker,  previously  warned,  —  Phillips, 


150  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

if  possible,  —  accept  the  opportunity  promptly, 
and  send  the  whole  meeting  pell-mell  to  Court 
Square,  ready  to  fall  in  behind  the  leaders  and 
bring  out  the  slave.  The  project  struck  me 
as  an  inspiration.  I  accepted  it  heartily,  and 
think  now,  as  I  thought  then,  that  it  was  one  of 
the  very  best  plots  that  ever  —  failed.  "  Good 
plot,  good  friends,  and  full  of  expectation." 
Why  it  came  within  an  inch  of  success  and 
still  failed  will  next  be  explained. 

The  first  thing  to  be  done  —  after  providing 
a  box  of  axes  for  attack  on  the  Court-House 
doors,  a  thing  which  I  personally  superintended 
—  was  to  lay  the  whole  matter  before  the  com 
mittee  already  appointed  and  get  its  concur 
rence.  This  committee  was  to  meet  in  the 
ante-room  of  Faneuil  Hall  before  the  general 
meeting.  As  a  matter  of  fact  it  never  came 
together,  for  everybody  was  pushing  straight 
into  the  hall.  The  moments  passed  rapidly. 
We  caught  first  one  member  of  the  committee, 
then  another,  and  expounded  the  plot.  Some 
approved,  others  disapproved ;  our  stout  sea- 
captain,  Bearse,  distrusting  anything  to  be  at 
tempted  on  land,  utterly  declining  all  part  in  it. 
Howe  and  Parker  gave  a  hasty  approval,  and  — 
only  half  comprehending,  as  it  afterwards  proved 
— were  warned  to  be  ready  to  give  indorsement 
from  the  platform ;  Phillips  it  was  impossible 


THE   FUGITIVE   SLAVE   EPOCH        151 

to  find,  but  we  sent  urgent  messages,  which 
never  reached  him  ;  Kemp  stood  by  us  :  and 
we  had  thus  a  clear  majority  of  the  committee, 
which  although  it  had  been  collectively  opposed 
to  the  earlier  plan  of  an  attack  at  the  end  of 
the  meeting,  was  yet  now  committed  to  a  move 
ment  half  way  through,  by  way  of  surprise. 
We  at  once  found  our  gallery  orator  in  the  late 
John  L.  Swift,  a  young  man  full  of  zeal,  with 
a  stentorian  voice,  afterwards  exercised  stoutly 
for  many  years  in  Republican  and  temperance 
meetings.  He  having  pledged  himself  to  make 
the  proposed  announcement,  it  was  only  ne 
cessary  to  provide  a  nucleus  of  picked  men  to 
head  the  attack  Stowell,  Kemp,  and  I  were 
each  to  furnish  five  of  these,  and  Lewis  Hay- 
den,  the  colored  leader,  agreed  to  supply  ten 
negroes.  So  far  all  seemed  ready,  and  the  men 
were  found  as  well  as  the  general  confusion 
permitted ;  but  the  very  success  and  over 
whelming  numbers  of  the  Faneuil  Hall  meeting 
soon  became  a  formidable  obstacle  instead  of 
a  help. 

It  was  the  largest  gathering  I  ever  saw  in 
that  hall.  The  platform  was  covered  with 
men ;  the  galleries,  the  floor,  even  the  outer 
stairways,  were  absolutely  filled  with  a  solid 
audience.  Some  came  to  sympathize,  more  to 
look  on,  —  we  could  not  estimate  the  propor- 


152  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

tion ;  but  when  the  speaking  was  once  begun, 
we  could  no  more  communicate  with  the  plat 
form  than  if  the  Atlantic  Ocean  rolled  between. 
There  was  then  no  private  entrance  to  it,  such 
as  now  exists,  and  in  this  seemingly  slight 
architectural  difference  lay  the  failure  of  the 
whole  enterprise,  as  will  be  presently  seen. 

Those  of  us  who  had  been  told  off  to  be 
ready  in  Court  Square  went  there  singly,  not 
to  attract  attention.  No  sign  of  motion  or  life 
was  there,  though  the  lights  gleamed  from 
many  windows,  for  it  happened  —  a  bit  of  un 
looked-for  good  fortune  —  that  the  Supreme 
Court  was  holding  an  evening  session,  and 
ordinary  visitors  could  pass  freely.  Planting 
myself  near  a  door  which  stood  ajar,  on  the 
east  side  of  the  building,  I  waited  for  the  trap 
to  be  sprung,  and  for  the  mob  of  people  to 
appear  from  Faneuil  Hall.  The  moments 
seemed  endless.  Would  our  friends  never  ar 
rive  ?  Presently  a  rush  of  running  figures,  like 
the  sweep  of  a  wave,  came  round  the  corner 
of  Court  Square,  and  I  watched  it  with  such 
breathless  anxiety  as  I  have  experienced  only 
twice  or  thrice  in  life.  The  crowd  ran  on  pell- 
mell,  and  I  scanned  it  for  a  familiar  face.  A 
single  glance  brought  the  conviction  of  fail 
ure  and  disappointment.  We  had  the  froth 
and  scum  of  the  meeting,  the  fringe  of  idlers 


THE   FUGITIVE   SLAVE   EPOCH        153 

on  its  edge.  The  men  on  the  platform,  the 
real  nucleus  of  that  great  gathering,  were  far 
in  the  rear,  perhaps  were  still  clogged  in  the 
hall.  Still,  I  stood,  with  assumed  carelessness, 
by  the  entrance,  when  an  official  ran  up  from 
the  basement,  looked  me  in  the  face,  ran  in, 
and  locked  the  door.  There  was  no  object  in 
preventing  him,  since  there  was  as  yet  no  vis 
ible  reinforcement  of  friends.  Mingling  with 
the  crowd,  I  ran  against  Stowell,  who  had  been 
looking  for  the  axes,  stored  at  a  friend's  office 
in  Court  Square.  He  whispered,  "Some  of 
our  men  are  bringing  a  beam  up  to  the  west 
door,  the  one  that  gives  entrance  to  the  upper 
stairway."  Instantly  he  and  I  ran  round  and 
grasped  the  beam  ;  I  finding  myself  at  the  head, 
with  a  stout  negro  opposite  me.  The  real  at 
tack  had  begun. 

What  followed  was  too  hurried  and  confusing 
to  be  described  with  perfect  accuracy  of  de 
tail,  although  the  main  facts  stand  out  vividly 
enough.  Taking  the  joist  up  the  steps,  we 
hammered  away  at  the  southwest  door  of  the 
Court-House.  It  could  not  have  been  many 
minutes  before  it  began  to  give  way,  was  then 
secured  again,  then  swung  ajar,  and  rested 
heavily,  one  hinge  having  parted.  There  was 
room  for  but  one  to  pass  in.  I  glanced  in 
stinctively  at  my  black  ally.  He  did  not  even 


154  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

look  at  me,  but  sprang  in  first,  I  following.  In 
later  years  the  experience  was  of  inestimable 
value  to  me,  for  it  removed  once  for  all  every 
doubt  of  the  intrinsic  courage  of  the  blacks. 
We  found  ourselves  inside,  face  to  face  with 
six  or  eight  policemen,  who  laid  about  them 
with  their  clubs,  driving  us  to  the  wall  and 
hammering  away  at  our  heads.  Often  as  I  had 
heard  of  clubbing,  I  had  never  before  known 
just  how  it  felt,  and  to  my  surprise  it  was  not 
half  so  bad  as  I  expected.  I  was  unarmed, 
but  had  taken  boxing  lessons  at  several  differ 
ent  times,  and  perhaps  felt,  like  Dr.  Holmes's 
young  man  named  John,  that  I  had  "a  new 
way  of  count  erin'  I  wanted  to  try ; "  but  hands 
were  powerless  against  clubs,  although  my 
burly  comrade  wielded  his  lustily.  All  we 
could  expect  was  to  be  a  sort  of  clumsy  Arnold 
Winkelrieds  and  "  make  way  for  liberty."  All 
other  thought  was  merged  in  this,  the  expecta 
tion  of  reinforcements.  I  did  not  know  that  I 
had  received  a  severe  cut  on  the  chin,  whose 
scar  I  yet  carry,  though  still  ignorant  how  it 
came.  Nor  did  I  know  till  next  morning,  what 
had  a  more  important  bearing  on  the  seeming 
backwardness  of  my  supposed  comrades,  that, 
just  as  the  door  sprang  open,  a  shot  had  been 
fired,  and  one  of  the  marshal's  deputies,  a  man 
named  Batchelder,  had  fallen  dead. 


THE   FUGITIVE   SLAVE   EPOCH        155 

There  had  been  other  fugitive  slave  rescues 
in  different  parts  of  the  country,  but  this  was 
the  first  drop  of  blood  actually  shed.  In  all 
the  long  procession  of  events  which  led  the 
nation  through  the  Kansas  struggle,  past  the 
John  Brown  foray,  and  up  to  the  Emancipation 
Proclamation,  the  killing  of  Batchelder  was  the 
first  act  of  violence.  It  was,  like  the  firing  on 
Fort  Sumter,  a  proof  that  war  had  really  begun. 
The  mob  outside  was  daunted  by  the  event, 
the  marshal's  posse  inside  was  frightened,  and 
what  should  have  been  the  signal  of  success 
brought,  on  the  contrary,  a  cessation  of  hostil 
ities.  The  theory  at  the  time  was  that  the  man 
had  been  stabbed  by  a  knife,  thrust  through  the 
broken  panel.  The  coroner's  inquest  found  it 
to  be  so,  and  the  press,  almost  as  active  as 
now,  yet  no  more  accurate,  soon  got  so  far  as  to 
describe  the  weapon,  —  a  Malay  kris,  said  to 
have  been  actually  picked  up  in  the  street.  For 
years  I  supposed  all  this  to  be  true,  and  conjec 
tured  that  either  my  negro  comrade  did  the 
deed,  or  else  Lewis  Hayden,  who  was  just  be 
hind  him.1  Naturally,  we  never  exchanged  a 

1  Lewis  Hayden  apparently  fired  a  shot  in  my  defense, 
after  entrance  had  been  made,  but  this  was  doubtless  after  the 
death  of  Katchelder ;  and  the  bullet  or  slug  was  said  to  have 
passed  between  the  arm  and  body  of  Marshal  Freeman. 
When  Theodore  Parker  heard  this  statement,  he  wrung  his 
hands  and  said,  "  Why  did  he  not  hit  him  ?" 


156  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

word  on  the  subject,  as  it  was  a  serious  matter ; 
and  it  was  not  till  within  a  few  years  (1888) 
that  it  was  claimed  by  a  well-known  journal 
ist,  the  late  Thomas  Drew,  that  it  was  Martin 
Stowell  who  shot,  not  stabbed,  Batch  elder ;  that 
Drew  had  originally  given  Stowell  the  pistol ; 
and  that  when  the  latter  was  arrested  and  im 
prisoned,  on  the  night  of  the  outbreak,  he  sent 
for  Drew  and  managed  to  hand  him  the  weapon, 
which  Drew  gave  to  some  one  else,  who  con 
cealed  it  till  long  after  the  death  of  Stowell 
in  the  Civil  War.  This  vital  part  of  the  facts, 
at  the  one  point  which  made  of  the  outbreak  a 
capital  offense,  remained  thus  absolutely  un 
known,  even  to  most  of  the  participants,  for 
thirty-four  years.  As  Drew  had  seen  the  re 
volver  loaded  in  Worcester,  and  had  found, 
after  its  restoration,  that  one  barrel  had  been 
discharged,  and  as  he  was  also  in  the  attacking 
party  and  heard  the  firing,  there  can  be  no 
reasonable  doubt  that  the  revolver  was  fired. 
On  the  other  hand,  I  am  assured  by  George  H. 
Munroe,  Esq.,  of  the  "Boston  Herald,"  who 
was  a  member  of  the  coroner's  jury,  that  the 
surgical  examination  was  a  very  thorough  one, 
and  that  the  wound  was  undoubtedly  made  by  a 
knife  or  bayonet,  it  being  some  two  inches  long, 
largest  in  the  middle  and  tapering  towards  each 
end.  A  similar  statement  was  made  at  the 


THE   FUGITIVE   SLAVE   EPOCH        157 

time,  to  one  of  my  informants,  by  Dr.  Charles 
T.  Jackson,  the  reported  discoverer  of  etheriza 
tion,  who  was  one  of  the  surgical  examiners.  It 
is  therefore  pretty  certain  that  Stowell's  bullet 
did  not  hit  the  mark  after  all,  and  that  the  man 
who  killed  Batchelder  is  still  unknown. 

All  this,  however,  was  without  my  knowledge ; 
I  only  knew  that  we  were  gradually  forced 
back  beyond  the  threshold,  the  door  standing 
now  wide  open,  and  our  supporters  having  fallen 
back  to  leave  the  steps  free.  Mr.  Charles  E. 
Stevens,  in  his  "Anthony  Burns,  a  History," 
published  in  1856,  says  that  I  said  on  emerg 
ing,  "  You  cowards,  will  you  desert  us  now  ?  " 
And  though  his  narrative,  like  most  contem 
porary  narratives,  is  full  of  inaccuracies,  this 
statement  may  be  true ;  it  was  certainly  what  I 
felt,  not  knowing  that  a  man  had  already  been 
killed,  and  that  Stowell  and  others  had  just 
been  taken  off  by  the  police.  I  held  my  place 
outside,  still  hoping  against  hope  that  some 
concerted  reinforcement  might  appear.  Mean 
while  the  deputy  marshals  retreated  to  the 
stairway,  over  which  we  could  see  their  pistols 
pointing,  the  whole  hall  between  us  and  them 
being  brightly  lighted.  The  moments  passed 
on.  One  energetic  young  lawyer,  named  Seth 
Webb,  whom  I  had  known  in  college,  ran  up 
the  steps,  but  I  dissuaded  him  from  entering 


158  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

alone,  and  he  waited.  Then  followed  one  of 
the  most  picturesque  incidents  of  the  whole 
affair.  In  the  silent  pause  that  ensued  there 
came  quietly  forth  from  the  crowd  the  well- 
known  form  of  Mr.  Amos  Bronson  Alcott,  the 
Transcendental  philosopher.  Ascending  the 
lighted  steps  alone,  he  said  tranquilly,  turning 
to  me  and  pointing  forward,  "  Why  are  we  not 
within  ? "  "  Because,"  was  the  rather  impatient 
answer,  "  these  people  will  not  stand  by  us." 
He  said  not  a  word,  but  calmly  walked  up  the 
steps,  —  he  and  his  familiar  cane.  He  paused 
again  at  the  top,  the  centre  of  all  eyes,  within 
and  without ;  a  revolver  sounded  from  within, 
but  hit  nobody ;  and  finding  himself  wholly  un 
supported,  he  turned  and  retreated,  but  without 
hastening  a  step.  It  seemed  to  me  that,  under 
the  circumstances,  neither  Plato  nor  Pythago 
ras  could  have  done  the  thing  better ;  and  the 
whole  scene  brought  vividly  back  the  similar 
appearance  of  the  Gray  Champion  in  Haw 
thorne's  tale. 

This  ended  the  whole  affair.  Two  com 
panies  of  artillery  had  been  ordered  out,  and 
two  more  of  marines,  these  coming  respectively 
from  Fort  Warren  and  the  Charlestown  Navy 
Yard.  (Here  again  I  follow  Stevens.)  Years 
after,  the  successor  of  the  United  States  mar 
shal,  the  Hon.  Roland  G.  Usher,  said  to  me 


THE   FUGITIVE   SLAVE   EPOCH        159 

that  his  predecessor  had  told  him  that  the  sur 
prise  was  complete,  and  that  thirty  resolute 
men  could  have  carried  off  Burns.  Had  the 
private  entrance  to  the  platform  in  Faneuil 
Hall  existed  then,  as  now,  those  thirty  would 
certainly  have  been  at  hand.  The  alarm  planned 
to  be  given  from  the  gallery  was  heard  in  the 
meeting,  but  was  disbelieved ;  it  was  thought 
to  be  a  scheme  to  interrupt  the  proceedings. 
Phillips  had  not  received  notice  of  it.  Parker 
and  Howe  had  not  fully  comprehended  the 
project;  but  when  the  latter  could  finally  get 
out  of  the  hall  he  ran  at  full  speed  up  to  the 
Court-House,  with  Dr.  William  Francis  Chan- 
ning  at  his  side,  and  they  —  two  of  our  most 
determined  men  —  found  the  field  lost.  Had 
they  and  such  as  they  been  present,  it  might 
have  been  very  different. 

The  attempt  being  a  failure  and  troops  ap 
proaching,  I  went  down  the  steps.  There  is 
always  a  farce  ready  to  succeed  every  tragedy, 
and  mine  occurred  when  a  man  in  the  crowd 
sidled  quietly  up  to  me  and  placidly  remarked, 
"Mister,  I  guess  you've  left  your  rumberill." 
It  flashed  through  my  mind  that  before  tak 
ing  hold  of  the  beam  I  had  set  down  my  um 
brella —  for  it  was  a  showery  day  —  over  the 
railing  of  the  Court-House  steps.  Recapturing 
this  important  bit  of  evidence,  I  made  my  way 


160  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

to  Dr.  W.  F.  Channing's  house,  had  my  cut 
attended  to,  and  went  to  bed  ;  awaking  in  a 
somewhat  battered  condition  the  next  morning, 
and  being  sent  off  to  Worcester  by  my  advisers. 
Then  followed  my  arrest  after  a  few  days,  —  a 
matter  conducted  so  courteously  that  the  way 
of  the  transgressor  became  easy. 

Naturally  enough,  my  neighbors  and  friends 
regarded  my  arrest  and  possible  conviction  as 
a  glory  or  a  disgrace  according  to  their  opin 
ions  on  the  slavery  question.  Fortunately  it  did 
not  disturb  my  courageous  mother,  who  wrote, 
"  I  assure  you  it  does  not  trouble  me,  though 
I  dare  say  that  some  of  my  friends  are  com 
miserating  me  for  having  a  son  *  riotously  and 
routously  engaged,'  "  —  these  being  the  curious 
legal  terms  of  the  indictment.  For  myself,  it 
was  easy  to  take  the  view  of  my  old  favorite 
Lamennais,  who  regarded  any  life  as  rather 
incomplete  which  did  not,  as  in  his  own  case, 
include  some  experience  of  imprisonment  in  a 
good  cause.  ("  II  manque  tou jours  quelque 
chose  a  la  belle  vie,  qui  ne  finit  pas  sur  le 
champ  de  bataille,  sur  T6chafaud  ou  en  prison.") 
In  my  immediate  household  the  matter  was 
taken  coolly  enough  to  suggest  a  calm  inquiry, 
one  day,  by  the  lady  of  the  house,  whether  all 
my  letters  to  her  from  the  prison  would  prob 
ably  be  read  by  the  jailer ;  to  which  a  young 


THE   FUGITIVE   SLAVE   EPOCH        161 

niece,  then  staying  with  us,  replied  with  the 
levity  of  her  years,  "  Not  if  he  writes  them  in 
his  usual  handwriting." 

It  was  left  to  my  honor  to  report  myself  at 
the  station  in  due  time  to  meet  the  officers  of 
the  law ;  and  my  family,  responding  to  this 
courtesy,  were  even  more  anxious  than  usual 
that  I  should  not  miss  the  train.  In  Boston, 
my  friend  Richard  Henry  Dana  went  with  me 
to  the  marshal's  office ;  and  I  was  seated  in  a 
chair  to  be  "looked  over"  for  identification  by 
the  various  officers  who  were  to  testify  at  the 
trial.  They  sat  or  stood  around  me  in  various 
attitudes,  with  a  curious  and  solemn  depth  of 
gaze  which  seemed  somewhat  conventional  and 
even  melodramatic.  It  gave  the  exciting  sen 
sation  of  being  a  bold  Turpin  just  from  Houn- 
slow  Heath ;  but  it  was  on  a  Saturday,  and 
there  was  something  exquisitely  amusing  in  the 
extreme  anxiety  of  Marshal  Tukey  —  a  dark, 
handsome,  picturesque  man,  said  to  pride  him 
self  on  a  certain  Napoleonic  look  —  that  I 
should  reach  home  in  time  for  my  Sunday's 
preaching.  Later  the  long  trial  unrolled  itself, 
in  which,  happily,  my  presence  was  not  neces 
sary  after  pleading  to  the  indictment.  Theo 
dore  Parker  was  the  only  one  among  the  de 
fendants  who  attended  steadily  every  day,  and 
he  prepared  that  elaborate  defense  which  was 


162  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

printed  afterwards.  The  indictment  was  ulti 
mately  quashed  as  imperfect,  and  we  all  got 
out  of  the  affair,  as  it  were,  by  the  side-door. 

I  have  passed  over  the  details  of  the  trial  as 
I  omitted  those  relating  to  the  legal  defense  of 
Burns,  the  efforts  to  purchase  him,  and  his  final 
delivery  to  his  claimant,  because  I  am  describ 
ing  the  affair  onlyas  a  private  soldier  tells  of 
what  he  personally  saw  and  knew.  I  must, 
however,  mention,  in  closing,  a  rather  amusing 
afterpiece  to  the  whole  matter,  —  something 
which  occurred  on  October  30,  1854.  A  Bos 
ton  policeman,  named  Butman,  who  had  been 
active  at  the  time  of  Burns' s  capture,  came  up 
to  Worcester  for  the  purpose,  real  or  reputed, 
of  looking  for  evidence  against  those  concerned 
in  the  riot.  The  city  being  intensely  anti-sla 
very  and  having  a  considerable  colored  popu 
lation,  there  was  a  strong  disposition  to  lynch 
the  man,  or  at  least  to  frighten  him  thoroughly, 
though  the  movement  was  checked  by  a  manly 
speech  to  the  crowd  by  George  Frisbie  Hoar, 
now  United  States  Senator,  but  then  a  young 
lawyer ;  the  ultimate  result  being  that  But 
man  was  escorted  to  the  railway  station  on 
Mr.  Hoar's  arm,  with  a  cordon  of  Abolitionists 
about  him,  as  a  shelter  from  the  negroes  who 
constantly  rushed  at  him  from  the  rear.  I  was 
one  of  this  escort,  and  directly  behind  Butman 


THE   FUGITIVE   SLAVE   EPOCH        163 

walked  Joseph  Rowland,  a  non-resistant  of 
striking  appearance,  who  satisfied  his  sensitive 
conscience  by  this  guarded  appeal,  made  at 
intervals  in  a  sonorous  voice :  "  Don't  hurt  him, 
mean  as  he  is !  Don't  kill  him,  mean  though 
he  be ! "  At  Rowland's  side  was  Thomas  Drew, 
a  vivacious  little  journalist,  already  mentioned, 
who  compounded  with  his  conscience  very  differ 
ently.  Nudging  back  reprovingly  the  negroes 
and  others  who  pressed  upon  the  group,  he 
would  occasionally,  when  the  coast  was  clear, 
run  up  and  administer  a  vigorous  kick  to  the 
unhappy  victim,  and  then  fall  back  to  repress 
the  assailants  once  more.  As  for  these  last, 
they  did  not  seem  to  be  altogether  in  earnest, 
but  half  in  joke;  although  the  scene  gave  the 
foundation  for  a  really  powerful  chapter,  called 
"The  Roar  of  St.  Domingo,"  in  the  now  forgot 
ten  novel  "  Harrington,"  by  W.  D.  O'Connor. 

Nevertheless,  Butman  was  once  knocked 
down  by  a  stone ;  and  when  we  reached  the 
station  just  as  the  express  train  moved  away, 
thus  leaving  him  behind,  there  began  to  come 
up  an  ugly  shout  from  the  mob,  which  seemed 
to  feel  for  a  moment  that  the  Lord  had  deliv 
ered  the  offender  into  its  hands.  As  a  horse 
with  a  wagon  attached  was  standing  near  by, 
it  was  hastily  decided  to  put  Butman  into  the 
wagon  and  drive  him  off,  — a  proposal  which  he 


164  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

eagerly  accepted.  I  got  in  with  him  and  took 
the  reins ;  but  the  mob  around  us  grasped  the 
wheels  till  the  spokes  began  to  break.  Then 
the  owner  arrived,  and  seized  the  horse  by  the 
head  to  stop  us.  By  the  prompt  action  of 
the  late  William  W.  Rice,  —  since  member  of 
Congress,  —  a  hack  was  at  once  substituted 
for  the  wagon  ;  it  drove  up  close,  so  that  But- 
man  and  I  sprang  into  it  and  were  whirled 
away  before  the  mob  fairly  knew  what  had  hap 
pened.  A  few  stones  were  hurled  through  the 
windows,  and  I  never  saw  a  more  abject  face 
than  that  of  the  slave-catcher  as  he  crouched 
between  the  seats  and  gasped  out,  "They'll 
get  fast  teams  and  be  after  us."  This,  how 
ever,  did  not  occur,  and  we  drove  safely  beyond 
the  mob  and  out  of  the  city  towards  Grafton, 
where  Butman  was  to  take  a  later  train.  Hav 
ing  him  thus  at  my  mercy,  and  being  doubtless 
filled  with  prophetic  zeal,  I  took  an  inhuman 
advantage  of  Butman,  and  gave  him  a  discourse 
on  the  baseness  of  his  whole  career  which 
would  perhaps  have  made  my  reputation  as  a 
pulpit  orator  had  my  congregation  consisted  of 
more  than  one,  or  had  any  modern  reporter 
been  hidden  under  the  cushions.  Being  over 
taken  a  mile  or  two  out  of  town  by  Lovell 
Baker,  the  city  marshal,  with  a  "fast  team" 
such  as  Butman  had  dreaded,  the  man  was 


THE   FUGITIVE   SLAVE   EPOCH         165 

transferred  to  him,  and  was  driven  by  him,  not 
merely  to  Graf  ton,  but  at  Butman's  urgent  re 
quest  to  Boston  and  through  the  most  unfre 
quented  streets  to  his  home.  I  meanwhile 
returned  peacefully  to  Worcester,  pausing  only 
at  the  now  deserted  station  to  hunt  up  my 
wife's  india-rubber  overshoes,  which  I  was  car 
rying  to  be  mended  when  the  tmcute  broke  out, 
and  which  I  had  sacrificed  as  heroically  as  I  had 
nearly  relinquished  my  umbrella  at  the  Boston 
Court-House. 

The  Burns  affair  was  the  last  actual  fugitive 
slave  case  that  occurred  in  Massachusetts,  al 
though  for  some  years  we  kept  up  organiza 
tions  and  formed  plans,  and  were  better  and 
better  prepared  for  action  as  the  call  for  it  dis 
appeared.  I  was  for  some  years  a  stockholder 
in  the  yacht  Flirt,  which  was  kept  in  commis 
sion  under  the  faithful  Captain  Bearse,  and 
was  nominally  let  for  hire,  though  really  in 
tended  either  to  take  slaves  from  incoming 
vessels,  or,  in  case  of  need,  to  kidnap  the  claim 
ant  of  a  slave  and  keep  him  cruising  on  the 
coast  of  Maine  until  his  claim  should  be  surren 
dered.  It  all  now  looks  very  far  off,  and  there 
has  been  time  for  the  whole  affair  to  be  re 
garded  in  several  different  aspects.  After  the 
Civil  War  had  accustomed  men  to  the  habitual 
use  of  arms  and  to  military  organization,  the 


166  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

"  Burns  riot "  naturally  appeared  in  retrospect 
a  boyish  and  inadequate  affair  enough ;  we 
could  all  see  how,  given  only  a  community  of 
veteran  soldiers,  the  thing  might  have  been 
more  neatly  managed.  And  again,  now  that 
thirty  years  of  peace  have  almost  extinguished 
the  habits  and  associations  of  war,  still  another 
phase  of  feeling  has  come  uppermost,  and  it 
seems  almost  incredible  that  any  condition  of 
things  should  have  turned  honest  American 
men  into  conscientious  law-breakers.  Yet  such 
transitions  have  occurred  in  all  periods  of  his 
tory,  and  the  author  of  the  "  Greville  Journals  " 
records  the  amazement  with  which  he  heard 
that  "Tom  Grenville,  so  mild,  so  refined, 
adorned  with  such  an  amiable,  venerable,  and 
decorous  old  age,"  should  be  the  same  man 
who  had  helped,  sixty  years  before,  to  carry  the 
Admiralty  building  by  storm  in  the  riots  occa 
sioned  by  the  trial  of  Admiral  Keppel,  and  had 
been  the  second  man  to  enter  at  the  breach. 
Probably,  if  the  whole  truth  were  told,  the  sin 
cere  law-breakers  of  the  world  are  the  children 
of  temperament  as  well  as  of  moral  conviction, 
and  at  any  period  of  life,  if  the  whirligig  of  time 
brought  back  the  old  conditions,  would  act  very 
much  as  they  acted  before. 


VI 

THE    BIRTH   OF    A    LITERATURE 

"  We  are  looking  abroad  and  back  after  a  literature.  Let  us  come 
and  live,  and  know  in  living  a  high  philosophy  and  faith  ;  so  shall 
we  find  now,  here,  the  elements,  and  in  our  own  good  souls  the 
fire.  Of  every  storied  bay  and  cliff  we  will  make  something  in 
finitely  nobler  than  Salamis  or  Marathon.  This  pale  Massachusetts 
sky,  this  sandy  soil  and  raw  wind,  all  shall  nurture  us.  ...  Unlike 
all  the  world  before  us,  our  own  age  and  land  shall  be  classic  to  our 
selves." 

THE  passage  above  quoted  is  from  the  Mas 
ter  of  Arts  oration  of  a  young  scholar  —  Robert 
Bartlett,  of  Plymouth  —  at  the  Harvard  Com 
mencement  exercises  of  1839.  The  original 
title  of  the  oration  was,  "No  Good  Possible 
but  shall  One  Day  be  Real."  Bartlett,  who  had 
been  the  first  scholar  in  his  class,  and  was  a 
tutor  in  the  university,  died  a  few  years  later, 
but  the  prophecy  above  given  attracted  much 
attention,  and  was  printed  in  an  English  maga 
zine,  —  "Heraud's  Monthly  "  (April,  1840) ;  — 
and  when  in  that  same  year  "  The  Dial "  began 
to  be  published,  the  very  first  page  of  the  first 
number  gave  as  its  basis  "  the  strong  current 
of  thought  and  feeling  which  for  a  few  years 


i68  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

past  has  led  many  sincere  persons  in  New  Eng 
land  to  make  new  demands  on  literature."  It 
was  a  foregone  conclusion,  however,  that  these 
new  demands  could  not  be  fully  met  by  the 
prophets  who  first  announced  them.  Prophets 
only  clear  the  way,  and  must  wait  for  the 
slower  march  of  trained  though  perhaps  un- 
prophetic  co-laborers.  A  new  era  of  American 
literature  was  at  hand,  but  the  Transcendental 
movement  of  itself  could  not  directly  have  cre 
ated  it.  Neither  its  organ,  "  The  Dial,"  nor  the 
avowed  successor  of  that  magazine,  the  "  Mas 
sachusetts  Quarterly  Review,"  — announced  by 
Theodore  Parker  as  being  "the  Dial  with  a 
beard,"  —  ever  achieved  a  wide  circulation. 
Fortunately,  in  the  natural  progress  of  things  a 
new  combination  effected  itself,  and  those  who, 
like  Holmes,  had  ridiculed  the  earlier  move 
ment  found  themselves  ready  within  twenty 
years  to  unite  with  those  who,  like  Emerson, 
had  produced  it ;  that  first  impulse  thus  form 
ing,  by  cohesion,  a  well-defined  circle  of  contrib 
utors  who  held  for  a  time  the  visible  leadership 
in  American  letters. 

That  which  saved  this  circle  from  becoming 
a  clique  and  a  mere  mutual  admiration  soci 
ety  was  its  fortunate  variety  of  personal  tem 
peraments.  Emerson,  Hawthorne,  Whittier, 
Holmes,  Longfellow,  and  Lowell,  to  name  only 


THE   BIRTH   OF  A   LITERATURE       169 

the  six  most  commonly  selected  as  the  repre 
sentatives  of  this  period,  were  really  so  dissimi 
lar  in  many  ways  that  they  could  not  possibly 
duplicate  one  another, — indeed,  could  not  al 
ways  understand  one  another;  and  thus  they 
were  absolutely  prevented  from  imposing  on 
Boston  anything  like  the  yoke  which  Christo 
pher  North  at  one  time  imposed  on  Edinburgh. 
This  was  still  more  true  of  others  just  outside 
the  circle,  —  Motley,  Parkman,  Thoreau,  —  and 
in  this  way  the  essential  variety  in  unity  was 
secured.  Then  there  were  other  men,  almost 
equally  gifted,  who  touched  the  circle,  or  might 
have  touched  it  but  that  they  belonged  to  the 
class  of  which  Emerson  says,  "  Of  what  use 
is  genius  if  its  focus  be  a  little  too  short  or  a 
little  too  long  ?  "  —  Alcott,  Ellery  Channing, 
Weiss,  Wasson,  Brownlee  Brown,  each  of  whom 
bequeathed  to  posterity  only  a  name,  or  some 
striking  anecdote  or  verse,  instead  of  a  well- 
defined  fame. 

It  is  an  embarrassment,  in  dealing  with  any 
past  period  of  literary  history,  that  we  have  to 
look  at  its  participants  not  merely  as  they  now 
seem,  but  as  they  appeared  in  their  day,  and 
we  must  calculate  their  parallax.  The  men  who 
in  those  years  were  actually  creating  American 
literature  —  creating  it  anew,  that  is,  after  the 
earlier  and  already  subsiding  impulse  given  by 


i;o  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

Irving  and  Cooper  —  do  not  retain  the  same 
relative  precedence  to  which  they  at  first 
seemed  entitled ;  Emerson  and  Hawthorne  hav 
ing  held  their  own  more  indisputably  than  the 
rest  of  the  group.  Some  who  distinctly  formed 
a  part  of  the  original  Atlantic  circle  have  in 
deed  failed  to  develop  staying  power.  It  would 
have  scarcely  appeared  possible,  in  those  days, 
that  the  brilliant  and  popular  Whipple,  who  was 
at  first  thought  a  second  Macaulay,  should  be 
at  the  end  of  the  century  an  almost  vanished 
force,  while  the  eccentric  and  unsuccessful  Tho- 
reau  —  whom  Lowell  and  even  his  own  neigh 
bors  set  aside  as  a  mere  imitator  of  Emerson 
—  is  still  growing  in  international  fame.  I 
remember  well  that  when  I  endeavored  to  enlist 
Judge  Hoar,  the  leading  citizen  of  Concord,  in 
an  effort  to  persuade  Miss  Thoreau  to  allow 
her  brother's  journals  to  be  printed,  he  heard 
me  partly  through,  and  then  quickly  said,  "But 
you  have  left  unsettled  the  preliminary  question, 
Why  should  any  one  care  to  have  Thoreau' s 
journals  put  in  print?"  I  had  to  abandon  the 
argument  as  clearly  hopeless.  It  is  also  plain 
from  Theodore  Parker's  correspondence  that  his 
estimate  of  Thoreau  was  but  little  higher  than 
Judge  Hoar's. 

My  own  relation  to  this  circle  was  the  hum 
ble  one  of  a  man  younger  than  the  rest,  brought 


THE   BIRTH   OF  A   LITERATURE       171 

up  under  their  influence,  yet  naturally  inde 
pendent,  not  to  say  self-willed,  and  very  much 
inclined  to  live  his  own  life.  I  had  long  be 
fore  noted  with  delight  in  Plutarch  the  tale  of 
the  young  Cicero  consulting  the  Delphic  oracle, 
and  being  there  advised  to  live  for  himself,  and 
not  to  take  the  opinions  of  others  for  his  guide, 
—  this  answer  being  called  by  Niebuhr  "  one  of 
the  oracles  which  might  tempt  one  to  believe  in 
the  actual  inspiration  of  the  goddess."  There 
was  not  one  of  these  older  men  whom  I  had  not 
sometimes  felt  free  to  criticise,  with  the  pre 
sumption  of  youth  ;  complaining  of  Emerson  as 
being  inorganic  in  structure ;  finding  Whittier 
sometimes  crude,  Hawthorne  bloodless  in  style, 
Holmes  a  trifler,  Longfellow  occasionally  com 
monplace,  Lowell  often  arrogant.  All  this  crit 
icism  was  easier  because  I  then  lived  at  a  distance 
from  Boston.  At  times,  no  doubt,  I  was  dis 
posed  to  fancy  myself  destined  to  unite  all  their 
virtues  and  avoid  all  their  faults,  while  at  other 
moments  I  felt,  more  reasonably,  that  I  might 
be  of  some  use  in  gathering  the  scattered  crumbs 
from  their  table.  It  is  quite  certain  that  I  was 
greatly  pleased  when  I  had  sent  to  the  "At 
lantic  Monthly  "  my  first  contribution,  "  Saints 
and  their  Bodies,"  and  saw  it  printed  in  the 
fifth  number;  it  being  later  characterized  by 
Holmes  as  "  an  admirable  paper,"  and  he  also 


172  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

designating  me  as  "a  young  friend"  of  his,  — 
a  phrase  which  awakened,  I  regret  to  say,  some 
scarcely  veiled  irreverence  on  the  part  of  a 
young  fellow  at  the  Worcester  Gymnastic  Club, 
of  which  I  was  then  president.  Alas,  I  was 
already  thirty-three  years  old,  and  youth  is  mer 
ciless.  Nor  can  I  wonder  at  the  criticism  when 
I  recall  that  the  daring  boy  who  made  it  died  a 
few  years  after  in  the  Civil  War,  a  brevet  briga 
dier-general,  at  the  age  of  twenty. 

I  had  previously  written  an  article  for  the 
"North  American  Review,"  another  for  the 
"  Christian  Examiner,"  and  three  papers  in 
prose  for  "  Putnam's  Magazine,"  one  of  these 
latter  being  a  description  of  a  trip  to  Mount  Ka- 
tahdin,  written  as  a  jeu  d? esprit  in  the  assumed 
character  of  a  lady  of  the  party.  A  few  poems 
of  mine  had  also  been  accepted  by  the  last- 
named  periodical ;  but  these  had  attracted  little 
notice,  and  the  comparative  tclat  attendant  on 
writing  for  the  "Atlantic  Monthly"  made  it 
practically,  in  my  case,  the  beginning  of  a  lit 
erary  life.  I  was  at  once  admitted  to  the  At 
lantic  Club,  an  informal  dinner  of  contributors 
in  those  days,  and  at  first  found  it  enjoyable. 
Before  this  I  had  belonged  to  a  larger  club,  — 
rather  short-lived,  but  including  some  of  the 
same  men,  —  the  Town  and  Country  Club, 
organized  in  1849,  at  Boston.  The  earlier  club 


THE   BIRTH    OF   A   LITERATURE       173 

had  no  dinners ;  in  fact,  it  erred  on  the  side  of 
asceticism,  being  formed,  as  Emerson  declared, 
largely  to  afford  a  local  habitation  and  dignified 
occupation  to  Mr.  Alcott.  Had  its  christening 
been  left  to  the  latter,  a  rhetorical  grandeur 
would  have  belonged  to  its  very  opening ;  for 
he  only  hesitated  whether  the  "  Olympian  Club  " 
or  the  "  Pan  Club  "  would  be  the  more  suita 
ble  designation.  Lowell  marred  the  dignity  of 
the  former  proposal  by  suggesting  the  name 
"  Club  of  Hercules  "  as  a  substitute  for  "  Olym 
pian  ;"  and  since  the  admission  of  women  was  a 
vexed  question  at  the  outset,  Lowell  thought 
the  "  Patty  Pan  "  quite  appropriate.  Upon  this 
question,  indeed,  the  enterprise  very  nearly 
went  to  pieces  ;  and  Mr.  Sanborn  has  printed 
in  his  "  Life  of  Alcott  "  a  characteristic  letter 
from  Emerson  to  myself,  after  I  had,  in  order  to 
test  the  matter,  placed  the  names  of  Elizabeth 
Peabody  and  Mary  Lowell  Putnam  —  Lowell's 
sister,  and  also  well  known  as  a  writer  —  on  the 
nomination  book.  Emerson  himself,  with  one 
of  those  serene  and  lofty  coups  d'ttat  of  which 
only  the  saints  are  capable,  took  a  pen  and 
erased  these  names,  although  the  question  had 
not  yet  come  up  for  decision,  but  was  still  pend 
ing  when  the  erasure  was  made.  Another 
vexed  subject  was  the  admission  of  colored 
members,  the  names  of  Frederick  Douglass 


174  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

and  Charles  Lenox  Remond  being  proposed. 
This  Lowell  strongly  favored,  but  wrote  to  me 
that  he  thought  Emerson  would  vote  against 
it ;  indeed,  Emerson,  as  he  himself  admitted 
to  me,  was  one  of  that  minority  of  anti-slavery 
men  who  confessed  to  a  mild  natural  colorpho- 
bia,  controlled  only  by  moral  conviction.  These 
names  were  afterwards  withdrawn  ;  but  the 
Town  and  Country  Club  died  a  natural  death 
before  the  question  of  admitting  women  was 
finally  settled. 

That  matter  was  not,  however,  the  occasion 
of  the  final  catastrophe,  which  was  brought  on 
by  FalstafF s  remediless  disease,  a  consumption 
of  the  purse.  Ellery  Channing  said  that  the 
very  name  of  the  club  had  been  fatal  to  it ;  that 
it  promised  an  impossible  alliance  between  Bos 
ton  lawyers,  who  desired  only  a  smoking-room, 
and,  on  the  other  hand,  as  he  declared,  a  num 
ber  of  country  ministers,  who  expected  to  be 
boarded  and  lodged,  and  to  have  their  washing 
done,  whenever  they  came  up  to  the  city.  In 
either  case,  the  original  assessment  of  five  dol 
lars  was  clearly  too  small,  and  the  utter  hope 
lessness  of  raising  any  additional  amount  was 
soon  made  manifest.  After  the  club  had  ex 
isted  six  months,  a  circular  was  issued,  asking 
the  members  to  remit,  if  possible,  two  dollars 
each  before  April  4,  1850,  that  the  debts  of  the 


THE   BIRTH   OF  A   LITERATURE       175 

club  might  be  paid,  and  their  fellow  members 
"be  relieved  from  an  unequal  burden."  This 
sealed  the  doom  of  the  enterprise,  and  "  the 
rest  is  silence."  It  is  now  far  easier  to  organize 
a  University  Club  on  a  fifty  or  one  hundred 
dollar  basis  than  it  was  then  to  skim  the  cream 
of  intellectual  Boston  at  five  dollars  a  head. 
The  fine  phrase  introduced  by  Mr.  Alcott  into 
the  constitution,  "  the  economies  of  the  club," 
proved  only  too  appropriate,  as  the  organization 
had  to  be  very  economical  indeed.  Its  member 
ship,  nevertheless,  was  well  chosen  and  varied. 
At  its  four  monthly  gatherings,  the  lecturers 
were  Theodore  Parker,  Henry  James  the  elder, 
Henry  Giles  (then  eminent  as  a  Shakespeare 
lecturer),  and  the  Rev.  William  B.  Greene, 
afterwards  colonel  of  the  First  Massachusetts 
Heavy  Artillery.  Among  the  hundred  or  more 
members,  there  were  well-known  lawyers,  as 
Sumner,  E.  R.  Hoar,  Hillard,  Burlingarne, 
Bemis,  and  Sewall ;  and  there  were  clergy 
men,  as  Parker,  Hedge,  W.  H.  C banning,  Hill, 
Bartol,  Frothingham,  and  Hale ;  the  only  non- 
Unitarian  clergyman  being  the  Rev.  John  O. 
Choules,  a  cheery  little  English  Baptist,  who 
had  been  round  the  world  with  Commodore 
Vanderbilt  in  his  yacht,  and  might  well  feel 
himself  equal  to  any  worldly  companionship. 
The  medical  profession  was  represented  by  Drs. 


176  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

Channing,  Bowditch,  Howe,  and  Loring ;  and 
the  mercantile  world  by  the  two  brothers  Ward, 
Franklin  Haven,  William  D.  Ticknor,  and 
James  T.  Fields.  Art  appeared  only  in  John 
Cheney,  the  engraver,  and  literature  in  the 
persons  of  Emerson,  Hawthorne,  Longfellow, 
Lowell,  and  Whipple.  These  five  authors  were 
contributors  to  the  "Atlantic  Monthly,"  and 
took  part  also  in  the  early  dinners  of  the  At 
lantic  Club. 

Holmes,  as  it  appears  from  his  biography, 
confounded  the  Atlantic  Club,  in  his  later  re 
collections,  with  its  larger  coeval,  the  Saturday 
Club ;  but  they  will  be  found  very  clearly  dis 
criminated  in  Longfellow's  journals.  During 
the  first  year  of  the  magazine  under  Phillips  & 
Sampson's  management,  there  were  monthly 
dinners,  in  or  near  Boston,  under  the  general 
ship  of  Francis  H.  Underwood,  the  office  editor, 
and  John  C.  Wyman,  then  his  assistant.  The 
most  notable  of  these  gatherings  was  undoubt 
edly  that  held  at  the  Revere  House,  on  occa 
sion  of  Mrs.  Stowe's  projected  departure  for 
Europe.  It  was  the  only  one  to  which  ladies 
were  invited,  and  the  invitation  was  accepted 
with  a  good  deal  of  hesitation  by  Mrs.  Stowe, 
and  with  a  distinct  guarantee  that  no  wine 
should  be  furnished  for  the  guests.  Other  femi 
nine  contributors  were  invited,  but  for  various 


THE   BIRTH   OF  A   LITERATURE      177 

reasons  no  ladies  appeared  except  Mrs.  Stowe 
and  Miss  Harriet  Prescott  (now  Mrs.  Spof- 
ford),  who  had  already  won  fame  by  a  story 
called  "  In  a  Cellar,"  the  scene  of  which  was 
laid  in  Paris,  and  which  was  so  thoroughly 
French  in  all  its  appointments  that  it  was  sus 
pected  of  being  a  translation  from  that  lan 
guage,  although  much  inquiry  failed  to  reveal 
the  supposed  original.  It  may  be  well  to  add 
that  the  honest  young  author  had  so  little  ap 
preciation  of  the  high  compliment  thus  paid 
her  that  she  indignantly  proposed  to  withdraw 
her  manuscript  in  consequence.  These  two 
ladies  arrived  promptly,  and  the  gentlemen  were 
kept  waiting,  not  greatly  to  their  minds,  in  the 
hope  that  other  fair  contributors  would  appear. 
When  at  last  it  was  decided  to  proceed  without 
further  delay,  Dr.  Holmes  and  I  were  detailed 
to  escort  the  ladies  to  the  dining-room  :  he  as 
the  head  of  the  party,  and  I  as  the  only  one 
who  knew  the  younger  lady.  As  we  went  up 
stairs  the  vivacious  Autocrat  said  to  me,  "  Can 
I  venture  it  ?  Do  you  suppose  that  Mrs.  Stowe 
disapproves  of  me  very  much?"  —  he  being 
then  subject  to  severe  criticism  from  the  more 
conservative  theologians.  The  lady  was  gra 
cious,  however,  and  seemed  glad  to  be  rescued 
at  last  from  her  wearisome  waiting.  She  came 
downstairs  wearing  a  green  wreath,  of  which 


i;8  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

Longfellow  says  in  his  diary  (July  9,  1859)  tnat 
he  "  thought  it  very  becoming." 

We  seated  ourselves  at  table,  Mrs.  Stowe  at 
Lowell's  right,  and  Miss  Prescott  at  Holmes' s, 
I  next  to  her,  Edmund  Quincy  next  to  me. 
Dr.  Stowe  was  at  Holmes's  left,  Whittier  at 
his ;  and  Longfellow,  Underwood,  John  Wyman, 
and  others  were  present.  I  said  at  once  to 
Miss  Prescott,  "  This  is  a  new  edition  of  *  Eve 
lina,  or  a  Young  Lady's  Entrance  into  the 
World.'  Begin  at  the  beginning :  what  did  you 
and  Mrs.  Stowe  talk  about  for  three  quarters 
of  an  hour  ?  "  She  answered  demurely,  "  No 
thing,  except  that  she  once  asked  me  what 
o'clock  it  was,  and  I  told  her  I  didn't  know." 
There  could  hardly  be  a  better  illustration  of 
that  curious  mixture  of  mauvaise  honte  and 
indifference  which  often  marred  the  outward 
manners  of  that  remarkable  woman.  It  is  very 
likely  that  she  had  not  been  introduced  to  her 
companion,  and  perhaps  had  never  heard  her 
name  ;  but  imagine  any  kindly  or  gracious  per 
son  of  middle  age  making  no  effort  to  relieve 
the  shyness  of  a  young  girl  stranded  with  herself 
during  three  quarters  of  an  hour  of  enforced 
seclusion ! 

The  modest  entertainment  proceeded  ;  con 
versation  set  in,  but  there  was  a  visible  awk 
wardness,  partly  from  the  presence  of  two 


THE   BIRTH   OF  A   LITERATURE       179 

ladies,  one  of  whom  was  rather  silent  by  reason 
of  youth,  and  the  other  by  temperament ;  and 
moreover,  the  thawing  influence  of  wine  was 
wanting.  There  were  probably  no  men  of  the 
party,  except  Whittier  and  myself,  who  did 
not  habitually  drink  it,  and  various  little  jokes 
began  to  circle  sotto  voce  at  the  table  ;  a  sug 
gestion,  for  instance,  from  Longfellow,  that  Miss 
Prescott  might  be  asked  to  send  down  into  her 
Cellar  for  the  wine  she  had  described  so  well, 
since  Mrs.  Stowe  would  allow  none  abovestairs. 
Soon,  however,  a  change  came  over  the  aspect 
of  affairs.  My  neighbor  on  the  right,  Edmund 
Quincy,  called  a  waiter  mysteriously,  and  giv 
ing  him  his  glass  of  water  remained  tranquilly 
while  it  was  being  replenished.  It  came  back 
suffused  with  a  rosy  hue.  Some  one  else  fol 
lowed  his  example,  and  presently  the  "con 
scious  water"  was  blushing  at  various  points 
around  the  board,  although  I  doubt  whether 
Holmes,  with  water-drinkers  two  deep  on  each 
side  of  him,  got  really  his  share  of  the  cov 
eted  beverage.  If  he  had,  it  might  have  modi 
fied  the  course  of  his  talk,  for  I  remember  that 
he  devoted  himself  largely  to  demonstrating  to 
Dr.  Stowe  that  all  swearing  doubtless  origi 
nated  in  the  free  use  made  by  the  pulpit  of 
sacred  words  and  phrases ;  while  Lowell,  at  the 
other  end  of  the  table,  was  maintaining  for  Mrs, 


i8o  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

Stowe's  benefit  that  "Tom  Jones"  was  the 
best  novel  ever  written.  This  line  of  discussion 
may  have  been  lively,  but  was  not  marked  by 
eminent  tact;  and  Whittier,  indeed,  told  me 
afterwards  that  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Stowe  agreed  in 
saying  to  him  that  while  the  company  at  the 
club  was  no  doubt  distinguished,  the  conver 
sation  was  not  quite  what  they  had  been  led  to 
expect.  Yet  Dr.  Stowe  was  of  a  kindly  nature 
and  perhaps  was  not  seriously  disturbed  even 
when  Holmes  assured  him  that  there  were  in 
Boston  whole  families  not  perceptibly  affected  by 
Adam's  fall ;  as  for  instance,  the  family  of  Ware. 
In  the  minor  gatherings  of  the  Atlantic 
Club  I  became  gradually  conscious  of  a  certain 
monotony.  Neither  Emerson  nor  Longfellow 
nor  Whittier  was  a  great  talker,  and  though 
the  conversation  was  always  lively  enough,  it 
had  too  much  the  character  of  a  dialogue  be 
tween  Holmes  and  Lowell.  Neither  of  these 
had  received  the  beneficent  discipline  of  Eng 
lish  dining-rooms,  where,  as  I  learned  long 
after,  one  is  schooled  into  self-restraint ;  and 
even  if  I  never  heard  in  London  any  talk  that 
was  on  the  whole  so  clever  as  theirs,  yet  in 
the  end  the  carving  is  almost  as  important  as 
the  meat.  Living  in  Worcester,  I  saw  little  of 
my  fellow  contributors  except  at  those  dinners, 
though  Emerson  frequently  lectured  in  that 


THE   BIRTH   OF  A   LITERATURE      181 

growing  city,  and  I  occasionally  did  the  same 
thing  at  Concord,  where  I  sometimes  stayed  at 
his  house.  It  was  a  delight  to  be  in  his  study, 
to  finger  his  few  and  well-read  books  ;  a  disci 
pline  of  humility  to  have  one's  modest  portman 
teau  carried  upstairs  by  Plato  himself ;  a  joy 
to  see  him,  relapsed  into  a  happy  grandparent, 
hold  a  baby  on  his  knee,  and  wave  his  playful 
finger  above  the  little  clutching  hands,  saying 
joyously,  "This  boy  is  a  little  philosopher;  he 
philosophizes  about  everything."  To  Worces 
ter  came  also  Alcott  and  Thoreau,  from  time 
to  time ;  the  former  to  give  those  mystic 
monologues  which  he  called  conversations,  and 
which  were  liable  to  be  disturbed  and  even 
checked  when  any  other  participant  offered 
anything  but  meek  interrogatories.  Thoreau 
came  to  take  walks  in  the  woods,  or  perhaps 
to  Wachusett,  with  Harrison  Blake,  his  later 
editor,  and  with  Theophilus  Brown,  the  freshest 
and  most  original  mind  in  Worcester,  by  voca 
tion  a  tailor,  and  sending  out  more  sparkles  of 
wit  and  humor  over  his  measuring-tape  and 
scissors  than  any  one  else  could  extract  from 
Rabelais  or  Montaigne.  Sometimes  I  joined 
the  party,  and  found  Thoreau  a  dry  humorist, 
and  also  a  good  walker  ;  while  Alcott,  although 
he  too  walked,  usually  steered  for  a  convenient 
log  in  the  edge  of  the  first  grove,  and,  seat- 


182  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

ing  himself  there,  "conversed"  once  more.  It 
may  be  that  there  are  men  now  as  quaint  and 
original  as  were  easily  accessible  in  those  days ; 
but  if  so,  I  wish  some  one  would  favor  me  with 
a  letter  of  introduction. 

It  was  perhaps  an  advantage  to  me,  and  cer 
tainly  a  great  convenience,  that  I  did  not  begin 
writing  for  magazines  until  I  was  above  thirty. 
I  thus  escaped  the  preliminary  ordeal  of  rejec 
tion,  a  thing  which  I  have  indeed  encountered 
but  once  in  respect  to  prose  papers,  during 
my  whole  literary  life.  As  Lowell,  Holmes, 
and  Underwood  all  heartily  approved  my  early 
essays,  I  was  tempted  to  stretch  their  range 
wider  and  try  experiments.  This  was  not  so 
much  from  any  changeableness  or  a  wish  to  be 
credited  with  versatility,  —  a  quality  which  I 
commonly  distrusted  and  criticised  in  others, 
—  but  because  there  were  so  many  interesting 
things  to  write  about ;  and  because  I  had  possi 
bly  been  rather  too  much  impressed  by  one  of 
Emerson's  perilous  maxims  as  applied  to  any 
writer,  "  If  he  has  hit  the  mark,  let  others  shat 
ter  the  target."  If  my  critics  agreed  that  I 
could  write  a  fairly  good  historical  essay  such 
as  "  A  Charge  with  Prince  Rupert,"  or  a  good 
outdoor  paper  such  as  "A  Procession  of  the 
Flowers,"  it  seemed  better  to  try  my  hand  at 
something  else.  There  was  no  indolence  about 


THE   BIRTH   OF  A   LITERATURE       183 

this ;  it  was  simply  an  eager  desire  to  fill  all 
the  parts.  Such  versatility  makes  life  very 
enjoyable,  but  perhaps  not  so  really  useful  or 
successful  as  a  career  like  that  of  my  con 
temporary,  Francis  Parkman,  who  used  to  be 
surrounded,  even  in  college,  by  books  of  Indian 
travel  and  French  colonial  history,  and  who 
kept  at  work  for  half  a  century  on  his  vast 
theme  until  he  achieved  for  himself  a  great  lit 
erary  monument.  He  was  really  a  specialist 
before  the  days  of  specialism.  To  adopt  a  dif 
ferent  method,  as  I  did,  is  to  put  one's  self  too 
much  in  the  position  of  a  celebrated  horse  once 
owned  by  a  friend  of  mine,  —  a  horse  which 
had  never  won  a  race,  but  which  was  prized 
as  having  gained  a  second  place  in  more  races 
than  any  other  horse  in  America.  Yet  it  is  to 
be  remembered  that  there  is  a  compensation  in 
all  these  matters :  the  most  laborious  historian 
is  pretty  sure  to  be  superseded  within  thirty 
years  —  as  it  has  already  been  prophesied  that 
even  Parkman  will  be  —  by  the  mere  accumu 
lation  of  new  material ;  while  the  more  dis 
cursive  writer  may  perchance  happen  on  some 
felicitous  statement  that  shall  rival  in  immor 
tality  Fletcher  of  Saltoun's  one  sentence,  or  the 
single  sonnet  of  Blanco  White. 

In  1859  the  "Atlantic  Monthly"  passed  into 
the  hands  of  Ticknor  &  Fields,  the  junior  pub- 


184  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

lisher  becoming  finally  its  editor.  It  was  a 
change  of  much  importance  to  all  its  contribu 
tors,  and  greatly  affected  my  own  literary  life. 
Lowell  had  been,  of  course,  an  appreciative 
and  a  sympathetic  editor,  yet  sometimes  dila 
tory  and  exasperating.  Thus,  a  paper  of  mine 
on  Theodore  Parker,  which  should  have  ap 
peared  directly  after  the  death  of  its  subject, 
was  delayed  for  five  months  by  being  acci 
dentally  put  under  a  pile  of  unexamined  manu 
scripts.  Lowell  had,  moreover,  some  conserva 
tive  reactions,  and  my  essay  "  Ought  Women 
to  Learn  the  Alphabet  ? "  which  would  now 
seem  very  innocent,  and  probably  had  a  wider 
circulation  than  any  other  magazine  article  I 
ever  wrote,  was  not  accepted  without  some 
shaking  of  the  head,  though  it  was  finally  given 
the  place  of  honor  in  the  number.  Fields  had 
the  advantage  over  Lowell  of  being  both  editor 
and  publisher,  so  that  he  had  a  free  hand  as 
to  paying  for  articles.  The  prices  then  paid 
were  lower  than  now,  but  were  raised  steadily ; 
and  he  first  introduced  the  practice  of  paying 
for  each  manuscript  on  acceptance,  though  he 
always  lamented  that  this  failed  of  its  end  so 
far  as  he  was  individually  concerned.  His 
object  was  to  quiet  the  impatience  of  those 
whose  contributions  were  delayed  ;  but  he  de 
clared  that  such  persons  complained  more  than 


THE   BIRTH   OF   A   LITERATURE       185 

ever,  saying,  "  Since  you  valued  my  contribution 
so  highly  as  to  pay  for  it,  you  surely  should 
print  it  at  once."  He  had  a  virtue  which  I  have 
never  known  in  any  other  editor  or  publisher, 
—  that  of  volunteering  to  advance  money  on 
prospective  articles,  yet  to  be  written ;  and  he 
did  this  more  than  once  to  me.  I  have  also 
known  him  to  increase  the  amount  paid,  on 
finding  that  an  author  particularly  needed  the 
money,  especially  if  it  were  the  case  of  a  wo 
man.  His  sympathy  with  struggling  women 
was  always  very  great ;  and  I  think  he  was 
the  only  one  in  the  early  "Atlantic  "  circle,  ex 
cept  Whittier  and  myself,  —  with  Emerson  also, 
latterly,  —  who  favored  woman  suffrage.  This 
financial  kindliness  was  a  part  of  his  general 
theory  of  establishing  a  staff,  in  which  effort 
he  really  succeeded,  most  of  his  contributors 
then  writing  only  for  him,  —  an  aim  which  his 
successors  abandoned,  as  doubtless  became  in 
evitable  in  view  of  the  rapid  multiplication  of 
magazines.  Certainly  there  was  something  very 
pleasant  about  Fields's  policy  on  this  point ; 
and  perhaps  he  petted  us  all  rather  too  much. 
He  had  some  of  the  defects  of  his  qualities,  — 
could  not  help  being  a  little  of  a  flatterer,  and 
sometimes,  though  not  always,  evaded  the  tell 
ing  of  wholesome  truths. 

I  happened  to  be  one  of  his  favorites;  he 


186  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

even  wished  me,  at  one  time,  to  undertake  the 
whole  critical  department,  which  I  luckily  de 
clined,  although  it  appears  by  the  index  that  I 
wrote  more  largely  for  the  first  twenty  volumes 
of  the  magazine  than  any  other  contributor 
except  Lowell  and  Holmes.  Fields  was  con 
stantly  urging  me  to  attempt  fiction,  and  when 
I  somewhat  reluctantly  followed  his  advice,  he 
thought  better  of  the  result,  I  believe,  than  any 
one  else  did ;  for  my  story  of  "  Malbone,"  espe 
cially,  he  prophesied  a  fame  which  the  public 
has  not  confirmed.  Yet  he  was  not  indiscrimi 
nate  in  his  praise,  and  suggested  some  amend 
ments  which  improved  that  tale  very  much. 
He  was  capable  also  of  being  influenced  by  ar 
gument,  and  was  really  the  only  editor  I  have 
ever  encountered  whose  judgment  I  could  move 
for  an  instant  by  any  cajoling;  editors  being, 
as  a  rule,  a  race  made  of  adamant,  as  they 
should  be.  On  the  other  hand,  he  advised 
strongly  against  my  writing  the  "  Young  Folks' 
History  of  the  United  States,"  which  never 
theless  turned  out  incomparably  the  most  suc 
cessful  venture  I  ever  made,  having  sold  to  the 
extent  of  two  hundred  thousand  copies,  and  still 
selling  well  after  twenty  years.  His  practical 
judgment  was  thus  not  infallible,  but  it  came 
nearer  to  it  than  that  of  any  other  literary  man 
I  have  ever  known.  With  all  his  desire  to 


THE   BIRTH   OF   A   LITERATURE       187 

create  a  staff,  Fields  was  always  eagerly  looking 
out  for  new  talent,  and  was  ever  prompt  to 
counsel  and  encourage.  He  liked,  of  course, 
to  know  eminent  men  ;  and  his  geese  were  apt 
to  be  swans,  yet  he  was  able  to  discriminate. 
He  organized  Dickens's  readings,  for  instance, 
and  went  to  every  one  of  them,  yet  confessed 
frankly  that  their  pathos  was  a  failure ;  that 
Little  Nell  was  unreal,  and  Paul  Dombey  a 
tiresome  creature  whose  death  was  a  relief. 
Fields  was  really  a  keen  judge  of  character, 
and  had  his  own  fearless  standards.  I  once 
asked  him  which  he  liked  the  better  personally, 
Thackeray  or  Dickens,  and  he  replied,  after  a 
moment's  reflection,  "  Dickens,  because  Thack 
eray  enjoyed  telling  questionable  stories,  a  thing 
which  Dickens  never  did." 

There  has  been  endless  discussion  as  to  the 
true  worth  of  the  literary  movement  of  which 
the  circle  of  "  Atlantic  "  writers  was  the  source. 
By  some,  no  doubt,  it  has  been  described  with 
exaggerated  claims,  and  by  others  with  a  dis 
approbation  quite  as  unreasonable.  Time  alone 
can  decide  the  precise  award  ;  the  essential  fact 
is  that  in  this  movement  American  literature 
was  born,  or,  if  not  born,  — for  certainly  Irving 
and  Cooper  had  preceded,  —  was  at  least  set 
on  its  feet.  Whether  it  could  not  have  been 
better  born  is  a  profitless  question.  This  group 


188  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

of  writers  was  doubtless  a  local  product ;  but 
so  is  every  new  variety  of  plum  or  pear  which 
the  gardener  finds  in  his  garden.  He  does  not 
quarrel  with  it  for  having  made  its  appearance 
in  some  inconvenient  corner  instead  of  in  the 
centre,  nor  does  he  think  it  unpardonable  that 
it  did  not  show  itself  everywhere  at  once  ;  the 
thing  of  importance  is  that  it  has  arrived.  The 
new  literary  impulse  was  indigenous,  and,  as 
far  as  it  felt  an  exotic  influence,  that  force  was 
at  any  rate  not  English ;  it  was  French,  Italian, 
and  above  all  German,  so  far  as  its  external 
factors  went.  Nothing  could  be  much  further 
from  the  truth  than  the  late  remark  of  an  es 
sayist  that  Boston  is  "  almost  the  sole  survival 
upon  our  soil  of  a  purely  English  influence." 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  current  of  thought 
which  between  1816  and  1818  took  our  whole 
American  educational  system  away  from  the 
English  tradition,  and  substituted  the  German 
methods,  had  been  transmitted  through  four 
young  men  from  New  England,  who  had  stud 
ied  together  at  Gottingen.  These  reporters  had 
sent  back  the  daring  assertion  that  while  our 
cisatlantic  schools  and  colleges  had  nothing  to 
learn  from  England,  —  not  even  from  the  Ox 
ford  and  Cambridge  of  that  day,  —  they  had, 
on  the  contrary,  everything  to  learn  from  the 
German  institutions.  The  students  in  question 


THE   BIRTH   OF  A  LITERATURE       189 

were  Cogswell,  Everett,  Ticknor,  and,  in  a  less 
degree,  Bancroft.  Three  of  these  went  from 
Harvard  College,  Everett  and  Bancroft  at  the 
expense  of  the  university ;  while  Ticknor  went 
from  Dartmouth.  They  all  brought  back  to 
Harvard  what  they  could  not  find  in  England, 
but  had  gained  in  Germany  ;  Everett  writing 
to  my  father  in  a  letter  which  lies  before  me 
(dated  June  6,  1818),  "There  is  more  teach 
ing  and  more  learning  in  our  American  Cam 
bridge  than  there  is  in  Oxford  and  Cambridge 
put  together."  They  laid  the  foundation  for 
non-English  training  not  only  in  Boston,  but  in 
America,  at  a  time  when  the  very  best  literary 
journal  in  New  York,  and  indeed  in  this  coun 
try,  was  called  "  The  Albion,"  and  was  English 
through  and  through. 

It  was,  in  fact,  made  a  temporary  reproach 
to  the  early  Transcendental  movement  that  it 
was  too  French  or  too  German,  and  not  Eng 
lish  enough  ;  and  when  George  Ripley's  library 
was  sold,  it  proved  to  be  by  far  the  best  Ger 
man  library  in  New  England  except  Theodore 
Parker's.  There  was  at  that  time  an  eager 
clamoring  not  only  for  German,  but  for  French, 
Italian,  and  even  Swedish  literature ;  then, 
when  the  "  Atlantic  "  circle  succeeded  to  the  do 
main  of  the  Transcendentalists,  it  had  in  Long 
fellow  the  most  accomplished  translator  of  his 


190  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

day;  and  the  Continental  influence  still  went 
at  least  side  by  side  with  the  English,  if  it  did 
not  prevail  over  it.  But  behind  this  question 
of  mere  intellectual  aliment  lay  the  problem 
whether  we  should  have  a  literature  of  our 
own  ;  and  it  was  a  strength,  not  a  weakness, 
in  these  men  when  they  aimed,  in  the  words 
of  young  Robert  Bartlett,  to  make  us  "  classic 
to  ourselves."  Probably  no  one  who  did  not 
live  in  those  days  can  fully  realize  what  it  was 
to  us  to  have  our  own  aspects  of  nature,  our 
own  historic  scenes,  our  own  types  of  character, 
our  own  social  problems,  brought  up  and  given 
a  prominent  place.  The  mere  substitution  of 
bobolink  and  oriole  for  lark  and  nightingale  was 
a  delicious  novelty.  At  any  rate,  for  good  or 
evil,  the  transition  was  made.  If  the  achieve 
ment  took  on  too  much  flavor  of  moral  earnest 
ness,  as  is  now  complained,  this  may  have  been 
inevitable.  In  hewing  down  the  forest,  the 
axe  must  have  weight  as  well  as  edge.  In  the 
work  that  obtruded  itself  while  this  literature 
was  being  created,  —  the  crushing  of  Ameri 
can  slavery  by  the  strong  hand,  —  it  was  not 
found  that  this  moral  force  had  been  a  thing 
superfluous.  It  was  not  a  Bostonian,  but  a  New 
Yorker  (Mr.  John  Jay  Chapman),  who  lately 
said  of  Emerson,  "  It  will  not  be  denied  that 
he  sent  ten  thousand  sons  to  the  war.'1 


THE   BIRTH   OF  A   LITERATURE       191 

It  is  certain,  at  any  rate,  that  a  belief  like 
this,  in  a  literature  actually  forming  before  my 
eyes,  was  an  important  part  of  my  happiness 
during  my  Worcester  life,  and  that  the  work 
growing  out  of  it  became  by  degrees  a  seri 
ous  interference  with  that  required  by  the  Free 
Church,  and  led  me  to  quit  the  latter.  I  had 
also  many  other  affairs  on  hand,  being,  as  Mr. 
Alcott  said  of  me,  "  a  man  of  tasks ;  "  and  all 
these,  while  multiplying  enjoyment  and  useful 
ness,  were  crowding  too  much  on  one  another. 
I  interested  myself  in  the  new  question  of  a 
prohibitory  liquor  law,  was  for  a  time  secretary 
of  the  state  committee,  and  also  took  a  hand  — 
again  aided  by  Martin  Stowell  —  in  enforcing 
the  law  in  Worcester.  Experience  brought  me 
to  the  opinion,  which  I  have  ever  since  held,  that 
such  a  law  is  useless  except  under  the  limita 
tions  of  local  option,  so  that  the  moral  pressure 
of  each  locality  may  be  behind  its  enforcement. 

I  have  already  spoken  of  continued  anti- 
slavery  work  in  Worcester.  I  was  also  deeply 
interested  in  the  problem  of  discharged  con 
victs,  having  in  that  direction  one  experience 
so  interesting  that  I  must  find  room  for  it.  In 
another  town  of  Massachusetts  I  had  known  a 
young  man  of  most  respectable  family,  who, 
after  a  series  of  skillful  burglaries,  had  been 
sent  to  prison  on  an  eight  years  sentence.  He 


192  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

had  there  sustained  an  excellent  character,  and, 
after  visiting  him  just  before  liberation,  I  had 
brought  him  to  Worcester,  and  placed  him  in  a 
family  of  worthy  English  people  belonging  to 
the  Free  Church,  who  carried  on  at  home  a 
little  manufacturing  business  which  he  readily 
learned.  Of  course  they  were  told  his  story, 
and  their  willingness  to  take  him  was  the  more 
admirable  inasmuch  as  they  had  once  tried 
much  the  same  experiment  and  had  been  de 
ceived.  He  behaved  perfectly  well,  yet  told 
me  frankly  that  he  used  to  loiter  before  jewel 
ers'  windows  and  think  how  easily  he  could  get 
possession  of  the  glittering  treasures  inside. 
He  ultimately  married  a  farmer's  daughter  in 
a  village  near  Worcester;  he  set  up  a  little 
shop  on  very  scanty  capital,  but  made  no  effort 
to  eke  it  out  by  any  dishonorable  action  ;  and 
when  the  war  came  he  somehow  got  a  lieu 
tenant's  commission,  but  for  some  reason  was 
never  assigned  to  any  regiment,  and  eventually 
died  of  disease.  Here  was  a  life  saved  from 
further  wrong,  and  by  the  simplest  means  ;  and 
when,  in  later  life,  I  attended  as  a  delegate  the 
meetings  of  prison  reformers  in  Europe,  I  was 
firm  in  the  conviction  that  such  things  as  I 
have  described  could  be  done. 

As   to   work  within  the  circle  of  my  own 
people,  I  found  plenty  of  it,  and  on  the  whole 


THE   BIRTH   OF  A   LITERATURE       193 

enjoyed  it.  They  had  almost  all  come  from 
more  conservative  religious  bodies,  and  some 
of  the  best  of  them  were  Spiritualists.  Only 
one  of  the  local  clergy  would  exchange  with 
me,  —  the  exception  being,  as  may  be  easily 
believed,  Edward  Everett  Hale,  who  had  not 
yet  migrated  to  Boston,  —  but  I  was  gradually 
brought  into  amicable  relations  with  many  of 
the  others,  and  had  no  reason  to  complain.  I 
was  on  the  school  committee  until  I  was 
dropped,  during  the  Know-Nothing  excitement, 
for  defending  the  right  of  a  Roman  Catholic 
father  to  decide  which  version  of  the  Scriptures 
his  child  should  read  in  school.  Twice  I  have 
thus  been  honorably  dismissed  from  school 
committees;  for  the  same  thing  happened  again 
in  Newport,  Rhode  Island,  ten  years  later,  in 
consequence  of  the  part  I  took  in  securing  the 
abolition  of  separate  colored  schools.  In  both 
cases  I  was  reinstated  later ;  being  appointed 
on  a  special  examination  committee  in  Worces 
ter  together  with  a  Roman  Catholic  priest,  and 
on  the  regular  committee  in  Newport  with  a 
colored  clergyman  ;  thus  "  bringing  my  sheaves 
with  me,"  as  a  clever  woman  said.  I  had  a 
hand  in  organizing  the  great  Worcester  Public 
Library,  and  was  one  of  its  early  board  of  trus 
tees,  at  a  time  when  we  little  dreamed  of  its 
expansion  and  widespread  usefulness. 


194  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

The  old  love  for  natural  history  survived,  and 
I  undertook  again  the  microscopic  work  which 
I  had  begun  in  Newburyport  under  the  guid 
ance  of  an  accomplished  biologist,  Dr.  Henry  C. 
Perkins.  He  had  also  introduced  me  to  the 
works  of  Oken  and  Richard  Owen ;  and  I  had 
written  for  the  "  Christian  Examiner "  (July, 
1852)  a  paper  called  "  Man  and  Nature,"  given 
first  as  a  lyceum  lecture,  which  expressed  some 
thing  of  that  morning  glow  before  sunrise 
which  existed  after  the  views  of  Goethe  and 
Oken  had  been  made  public,  but  when  Dar 
win's  great  discoveries  were  yet  to  be  achieved. 
In  Worcester  I  did  a  great  deal  in  the  way  of 
field  observation,  and  organized,  with  Hale  and 
others,  the  local  Natural  History  Society,  one 
branch  of  which,  the  botanical  club,  still  bears 
my  name.  I  also  read  many  books  on  anthro 
pology,  and  wrote  for  the  "  Atlantic  "  various 
essays  on  kindred  themes,  which  were  after 
wards  published  in  a  volume  as  "  Out-Door 
Papers."  The  preparation  for  this  work  gave 
that  "  enormity  of  pleasure,"  in  Wordsworth's 
phrase,  which  only  the  habit  of  minute  and 
written  observation  can  convey;  and  I  had 
many  happy  days,  especially  in  the  then  unpro- 
faned  regions  of  Lake  Quinsigamond.  With 
all  this  revived  the  old  love  of  athletic  exer 
cises  :  I  was  president  of  a  gymnastic  club,  a 


THE   BIRTH   OF   A   LITERATURE      195 

skating  club,  and  a  cricket  club,  playing  in  sev 
eral  match  games  with  the  latter.  I  never 
actually  belonged  to  a  volunteer  engine  com 
pany,  such  as  then  existed  everywhere,  —  it  is 
a  wonder  that  I  did  not,  —  but  was  elected  an 
honorary  member  of  Tiger  Engine  Company 
Number  6,  though  unluckily  the  Tigers  engaged 
in  a  general  fight  at  their  annual  meeting,  be 
fore  I  could  join,  and  the  company  was  dis 
solved  by  the  city  fathers  in  consequence  ;  so 
that  this  crowning  distinction  was  at  the  last 
moment  wrested  from  me.  Thus  passed  the 
years,  until  the  Kansas  excitement  burst  upon 
the  nation  and  opened  the  way  to  new  experi 
ences. 


VII 

KANSAS  AND  JOHN  BROWN 

COMING  into  Boston  Harbor  in  September, 
1856,  after  a  long  and  stormy  passage  in  a  sail 
ing  vessel  from  the  island  of  Fayal,  the  passen 
gers,  of  whom  I  was  one,  awaited  with  eager 
interest  the  arrival  of  the  pilot.  He  proved  to 
be  one  of  the  most  stolid  and  reticent  of  his 
tribe,  as  impenetrable  to  our  curiosity  as  were 
his  own  canvas  garments  to  raindrops.  At 
last,  as  if  to  shake  us  off,  he  tugged  from 
some  remote  pocket  a  torn  fragment  of  a  daily 
newspaper,  —  large  enough  to  set  before  our 
eyes  at  a  glance  the  momentous  news  of  the 
assault  on  Charles  Sumner  in  the  United  States 
Senate,  and  of  the  blockading  of  the  Missouri 
River  against  Free  State  emigrants.  Arrived 
on  shore,  my  immediate  party  went  at  once  to 
Worcester ;  and  the  public  meeting  held  by 
my  friends  to  welcome  me  back  became  also 
a  summons  to  call  out  volunteer  emigrants 
for  Kansas.  Worcester  had  been  thoroughly 
wakened  to  the  needs  of  the  new  Territory 
through  the  formation  of  the  Emigrant  Aid 


KANSAS   AND   JOHN   BROWN  197 

Society,  which  had  done  much  good  by  direct 
ing  public  attention  to  the  opportunities  of 
fered  by  Kansas,  though  the  enterprise  had 
already  lost  some  momentum  by  the  obvious 
limitations  of  its  method  of  "  organized  emigra 
tion."  It  had  been  shown  that  it  was  easy  to 
get  people  to  go  together  to  a  new  colony,  but 
hard  to  keep  them  united  after  they  got  there, 
since  they  could  not  readily  escape  the  Amer 
ican  impulse  to  disregard  organization  and  go 
to  work,  each  for  himself ;  this  desire  being  as 
promptly  visible  in  the  leaders  as  in  anybody 
else.  Moreover,  it  seemed  necessary  to  arm  any 
party  of  colonists  more  openly  and  thoroughly 
than  had  been  the  policy  of  the  Emigrant  Aid 
Society  ;  and  so  a  new  movement  became  need 
ful.  A  committee  was  appointed,  of  which  I  was 
secretary,  with  a  view  to  sending  a  series  of 
parties  from  Worcester ;  and  of  these  we  in  the 
end  furnished  three. 

First,  however,  I  was  sent  to  St.  Louis  to 
meet  a  party  of  Massachusetts  emigrants,  un 
der  Dr.  Calvin  Cutter,  who  had  been  turned 
back  from  the  river  by  the  Missourians,  or 
"Border  Ruffians,"  as  they  had  then  begun  to 
be  called.  I  was  charged  with  funds  to  pro 
vide  for  the  necessities  of  this  body,  and  was 
also  to  report  on  the  practicability  of  either 
breaking  the  river  blockade  or  flanking  it  A 


198  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

little  inquiry  served  to  show  that  only  the  lat 
ter  method  would  as  yet  be  available.  Events 
moved  rapidly  ;  a  national  committee  was  soon 
formed,  with  headquarters  at  Chicago,  and  it 
was  decided  to  send  all  future  emigrants  across 
Iowa  and  Nebraska,  fighting  their  way,  if  neces 
sary,  into  Kansas.  Our  three  parties,  accord 
ingly,  went  by  that  route ;  the  men  being  pro 
vided  with  rifles,  revolvers,  and  camp  equipage. 
Two  of  these  parties  made  their  rendezvous  in 
Worcester,  one  under  command  of  my  friend 
Stowell ;  the  third  party  was  formed  largely  of 
Maine  lumbermen,  recruited  in  a  body  for  the 
service.  I  never  saw  thirty  men  of  finer  phy 
sique,  as  they  strode  through  Boston  in  their 
red  shirts  and  rough  trousers  to  meet  us  at  the 
Emigrant  Aid  Society  rooms,  which  had  been 
kindly  lent  us  for  the  purpose.  The  rest  of  the 
men  came  to  us  singly,  from  all  over  New  Eng 
land,  some  of  the  best  being  from  Vermont, 
including  Henry  Thompson,  afterwards  John 
Brown's  son-in-law,  killed  at  Harper's  Ferry. 

I  have  never  ceased  to  regret  that  all  the 
correspondence  relating  to  these  companies, 
though  most  carefully  preserved  for  years,  was 
finally  lost  through  a  casualty,  and  they  must 
go  forever  unrecorded  ;  but  it  was  all  really  a 
rehearsal  in  advance  of  the  great  enlistments 
of  the  Civil  War.  The  men  were  personally  of 


KANSAS   AND  JOHN    BROWN  199 

as  high  a  grade  as  the  later  recruits,  perhaps 
even  higher ;  they  were  of  course  mostly  undis 
ciplined,  and  those  who  had  known  something 
of  military  service  —  as  in  the  Mexican  War, 
for  instance  —  were  usually  the  hardest  to  man 
age,  save  and  except  the  stalwart  lumbermen, 
who  were  from  the  beginning  a  thorn  in  the 
flesh  to  the  worthy  Orthodox  Congregational 
clergyman  whom  it  became  necessary  to  put 
in  charge  of  this  final  party  of  emigrants.  He 
wrote  back  to  me  that  if  I  had  any  lingering 
doubts  of  the  doctrine  of  total  depravity,  I  had 
better  organize  another  party  of  Maine  lumber 
men  and  pilot  them  to  Kansas.  Sympathy 
was  certainly  due  to  him ;  and  yet  I  should 
have  liked  to  try  the  experiment. 

Being  appointed  as  an  agent  of  the  National 
Kansas  Committee,  I  went  out  in  September, 
1856,  to  meet  and  direct  this  very  party,  and 
others  —  including  several  hundred  men  — 
which  had  been  collected  on  the  Nebraska 
border.  The  events  of  the  six  weeks  following 
were  described  by  me  in  a  series  of  letters, 
signed  "  Worcester,"  in  the  "  New  York  Tri 
bune,"  and  later  collected  in  a  pamphlet  entitled 
"A  Ride  through  Kansas."  It  was  a  period 
when  history  was  being  made  very  rapidly,  —  a 
period  which  saw  a  policy  of  active  oppression 
at  last  put  down  and  defeated,  although  backed 


200  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

by  the  action  or  sustained  by  the  vacillation  of 
the  national  government.  The  essential  differ 
ence  between  the  Northern  and  the  Southern 
forces  in  Kansas  at  that  period  was  that  the 
Northern  men  went  as  bona  fide  settlers,  and 
the  Southerners  mainly  to  break  up  elections 
and  so  make  it  a  Slave  Territory.  Every  mem 
ber  of  our  Worcester  parties  signed  a  pledge 
to  settle  in  Kansas,  and  nearly  all  kept  it.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  parties  from  South  Caro 
lina  and  Virginia,  whom  I  afterwards  encoun 
tered,  had  gone  there  simply  on  a  lark,  meaning 
to  return  home  when  it  was  over,  as  they  freely 
admitted.  This  difference  of  material,  rather 
than  any  superiority  of  organization,  was  what 
finally  gave  Kansas  to  freedom. 

The  end  of  Western  railway  communication 
was  then  Iowa  City,  in  Iowa,  and  those  who 
would  reach  Kansas  had  six  hundred  miles 
farther  to  walk  or  ride.  I  myself  rode  across 
Iowa  for  four  days  and  nights  on  the  top  of 
a  stage-coach,  in  the  path  of  my  emigrants,  — 
watching  the  sun  go  down  blazing,  and  some 
times  pear-shaped,  over  the  prairie  horizon,  just 
as  it  goes  down  beyond  the  ocean,  and  then 
seeing  it  rise  in  the  same  way.  When  the 
stage  at  last  rolled  me  into  Nebraska  City,  it 
seemed  as  if  I  had  crossed  the  continent,  for  I 
had  passed  through  Council  Bluffs,  which  in 


KANSAS   AND  JOHN   BROWN  201 

my  school  geography  had  figured  as  the  very 
outpost  of  the  nation.  Once  arrived  there,  I 
felt  as  bewildered  as  a  little  boy  on  the  Ca 
nadian  railway  who,  when  the  conductor  an 
nounced  the  small  village  called  London,  waked 
from  a  doze  and  exclaimed  in  my  hearing,  "  Do 
we  really  pass  through  London — that  great 
city  ?  "  One  of  the  first  needful  duties  was  to 
visit  our  party  of  lumbermen  and  restore  peace, 
if  possible,  between  them  and  their  officers. 
For  this  purpose  I  made  my  first  stump  speech, 
in  a  literal  sense,  standing  on  a  simple  ped 
estal  of  that  description,  and  reasoning  with  the 
mutineers  to  the  best  of  my  ability.  They  had 
behaved  so  like  grown-up  children  that  I  fear 
my  discourse  was  somewhat  in  the  line  adopted 
in  later  years  by  a  brilliant  woman  of  my  ac 
quaintance,  whose  son  had  got  into  a  college 
difficulty.  I  asked  her,  "  Did  you  talk  the 
matter  over  with  him  ? "  "  Certainly,"  she  said 
eagerly.  "  I  reasoned  with  him.  I  said  to  him, 

1  L ,  you  are  a  great  fool ! ' '      It  was  not 

necessary  to  be  quite  so  plain-spoken  in  this 
case ;  and  as  I  was  fortified  by  the  fact  of  hav 
ing  all  their  means  of  subsistence  in  a  money- 
belt  about  my  waist,  the  advantage  was  clearly 
on  my  side,  and  some  order  was  finally  brought 
out  of  chaos. 

Soon  after  arriving  I  had  to  drive  from  Ne- 


202  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

braska  City  to  Tabor  on  an  errand,  over  about 
twenty  miles  of  debatable  ground,  absolutely 
alone.  It  had  been  swept  by  the  hostile  par 
ties  of  both  factions ;  there  was  no  more  law 
than  in  the  Scottish  Highlands  ;  every  swell  of 
the  rolling  prairie  offered  a  possible  surprise, 
and  I  had  some  of  the  stirring  sensations  of  a 
moss-trooper.  Never  before  in  my  life  had  I 
been,  distinctively  and  unequivocally,  outside 
of  the  world  of  human  law  ;  it  had  been  ready 
to  protect  me,  even  when  I  disobeyed  it.  Here 
it  had  ceased  to  exist ;  my  Sharp's  rifle,  my  re 
volvers,  —  or,  these  failing,  my  own  ingenuity 
and  ready  wit,  —  were  all  the  protection  I  had. 
It  was  a  delightful  sensation  ;  I  could  quote  to 
myself  from  Browning's  magnificent  soliloquy 
in  "  Colombe's  Birthday  :  "  — 

"  When  is  man  strong  until  he  feels  alone  ?  " 

and  there  came  to  mind  some  thrilling  pas 
sages  from  Thornbury's  "  Ballads  of  the  Cava 
liers  and  Roundheads"  or  from  the  "Jacobite 
Minstrelsy."  On  this  very  track  a  carrier  had 
been  waylaid  and  killed  by  the  Missourians  only  a 
few  days  before.  The  clear  air,  the  fresh  breeze, 
gave  an  invigorating  delight,  impaired  by  no 
thing  but  the  yellow  and  muddy  streams  of  that 
region,  which  seemed  to  my  New  England  eye 
such  a  poor  accompaniment  for  the  land  of  the 


KANSAS   AND   JOHN   BROWN  203 

free.  Tabor  itself  was  then  known  far  and  wide 
as  a  Free  State  town,  from  the  warm  sympathy 
of  its  people  for  the  struggles  of  their  neigh 
bors,  and  I  met  there  with  the  heartiest  encour 
agement,  and  had  an  escort  back. 

The  tavern  where  I  lodged  in  Nebraska  City 
was  miserable  enough  ;  the  beds  being  fear 
fully  dirty,  the  food  indigestible,  and  the  table 
eagerly  beset  by  three  successive  relays  of  men. 
One  day  a  commotion  took  place  in  the  street : 
people  ran  out  to  the  doors ;  and  some  thirty 
rough-riders  came  cantering  up  to  the  hostelry. 
They  might  have  been  border  raiders  for  all 
appearance  of  cavalry  order  :  some  rode  horses, 
some  mules ;  some  had  bridles,  others  had  lari 
ats  of  rope  ;  one  man  had  on  a  slight  semblance 
of  uniform,  and  seemed  a  sort  of  lieutenant. 
The  leader  was  a  thin  man  of  middle  age,  in 
a  gray  woolen  shirt,  with  keen  eyes,  smooth 
tongue,  and  a  suggestion  of  courteous  and  even 
fascinating  manners  ;  a  sort  of  Prince  Rupert  of 
humbler  grade.  This  was  the  then  celebrated 
Jim  Lane,  afterwards  Senator  James  H.  Lane, 
of  the  United  States  Congress  ;  at  this  time 
calling  himself  only  "  Major-General  command 
ing  the  Free  State  Forces  of  Kansas."  He 
was  now  retreating  from  the  Territory  with 
his  men,  in  deference  to  the  orders  of  the  new 
United  States  governor,  Geary,  who  was  making 


204  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

an  attempt,  more  or  less  serious,  to  clear  Kansas 
of  all  armed  bands.  Lane  stopped  two  days  in 
Nebraska  City,  and  I  did  something  towards 
renewing  the  clothing  of  his  band.  He  made 
a  speech  to  the  citizens  of  the  town,  —  they 
being  then  half  balanced  between  anti-slavery 
and  pro-slavery  sympathies,  —  and  I  have  sel 
dom  heard  eloquence  more  thrilling,  more  tact 
ful,  better  adjusted  to  the  occasion.  Ralph 
Waldo  Emerson,  I  remember,  was  much  im 
pressed  by  a  report  of  this  speech  as  sent  by 
me  to  some  Boston  newspaper.  Lane  went  with 
me,  I  think,  to  see  our  emigrants,  encamped  near 
by ;  gave  me  some  capital  suggestions  as  to  our 
march  into  the  Territory ;  and  ended  by  hand 
ing  me  a  bit  of  crumpled  paper,  appointing  me 
a  member  of  his  staff  with  the  rank  of  brigadier- 
general. 

As  I  rode  out  of  Nebraska  City  on  the 
march,  next  day,  my  companion,  Samuel  F. 
Tappan,  riding  at  my  side,  took  occasion  to  ex 
hibit  casually  a  similar  bit  of  paper  in  his  own 
possession ;  and  we  thus  found  that  the  Kan 
sas  guerrilla  leader  carried  out  the  habit  of 
partisan  chiefs  in  all  history,  who  have  usually 
made  up  in  titles  and  honors  what  they  could 
not  bestow  in  actual  emoluments.  After  this 
discovery  Tappan  and  I  rode  on  in  conscious 
inward  importance,  a  sort  of  dignity  d  deux, 


KANSAS   AND  JOHN   BROWN          205 

yet  not  knowing  but  that  at  any  moment  some 
third  brigadier-general  might  cross  our  path. 
We  accompanied  and  partially  directed  the 
march  of  about  a  hundred  and  sixty  men,  with 
some  twenty  women  and  children.  There  were 
twenty-eight  wagons,  all  but  eight  being  drawn 
by  horses.  The  nightly  tents  made  quite  an 
imposing  encampment ;  while  some  of  the  men 
fed  and  watered  the  stock,  others  brought  wood 
from  far  and  near,  others  cleaned  their  rifles, 
others  prepared  the  wagons  for  sleeping ;  the 
cooks  fried  pork  and  made  bread ;  women  with 
their  babies  sat  round  the  fire ;  and  a  sad 
dler  brought  out  his  board  and  leather  every 
night  and  made  belts  and  holsters  for  the  emi 
grants.  Each  man  kept  watch  for  an  hour, 
striding  in  thick  boots  through  the  prairie  grass 
heavy  with  frost.  Danger  had  always  to  be 
guarded  against,  though  we  were  never  actually 
attacked;  and  while  we  went  towards  Kan 
sas,  we  met  armed  parties  day  after  day  flee 
ing  from  it,  hopeless  of  peace.  When  at  last 
we  reached  the  Kansas  River,  we  found  on  its 
muddy  banks  nineteen  wagons  with  emigrants, 
retreating  with  heavy  hearts  from  the  land  of 
promise  so  eagerly  sought  two  years  before. 
"  The  Missourians  could  not  conquer  us,"  they 
said,  "  but  Governor  Geary  has." 

On  my  first  morning  in  Lawrence,  Kansas, 


206  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

I  waked  before  daybreak,  and  looking  out  saw 
the  house  surrounded  by  dragoons,  each  sit 
ting  silent  on  his  horse.  This  again  was  a 
new  experience  in  those  ante-bellum  days.  A 
party  of  a  hundred  and  fifty  of  these  men  had 
been  sent  to  intercept  us,  we  learned,  under 
the  command  of  Colonel  Preston  and  Captain 
Walker  of  the  United  States  Army ;  the  latter 
luckily  being  an  old  acquaintance  of  my  own. 
As  a  result,  I  went  with  Charles  Robinson,  the 
Free  State  governor,  and  James  Redpath  for 
a  half -amicable,  half -compulsory  interview  with 
the  actual  governor,  Geary ;  and  we  parted, 
leaving  everything  undecided,  —  indeed,  nothing 
ever  seemed  to  be  decided  in  Kansas ;  the  whole 
destiny  of  the  Territory  was  one  of  drifting, 
until  it  finally  drifted  into  freedom.  Yet  in 
view  of  the  fact  that  certain  rifles  which  we 
had  brought,  and  which  had  been  left  at  Tabor, 
Iowa,  for  future  emergencies,  were  the  same 
weapons  which  ultimately  armed  John  Brown 
and  his  men  at  Harper's  Ferry,  it  is  plain  that 
neither  Governor  Geary's  solicitude  nor  the  mil 
itary  expedition  of  Colonel  Preston  was  at  all 
misplaced. 

I  formed  that  day  a  very  unfavorable  impres 
sion  of  Governor  Geary,  and  a  favorable  one  of 
Governor  Robinson,  and  lived  to  modify  both 
opinions.  The  former,  though  vacillating  in 


KANSAS   AND  JOHN    BROWN  207 

Kansas,  did  himself  great  credit  afterwards  in 
the  Civil  War  ;  while  the  latter  did  himself  very 
little  credit  in  Kansas  politics,  whose  bitter 
hostilities  and  narrow  vindictiveness  he  was 
the  first  to  foster.  Jealousy  of  the  influence  of 
Brown,  Lane,  and  Montgomery  led  him  in  later 
years  to  be  chiefly  responsible  for  that  curious 
myth  concerning  the  Kansas  conflict  which  has 
wholly  taken  possession  of  many  minds,  and 
has  completely  perverted  the  history  of  that 
State  written  by  Professor  Spring,  —  a  theory 
to  the  effect  that  there  existed  from  the  begin 
ning  among  the  Free  State  people  two  well- 
defined  parties,  the  one  wishing  to  carry  its 
ends  by  war,  the  other  by  peace.  As  a  mat 
ter  of  fact  there  was  no  such  division.  In  re 
gard  to  the  most  extreme  act  of  John  Brown's 
Kansas  career,  the  so-called  "  Pottawatomie 
massacre"  of  May  24,  1856,  I  can  testify  that 
in  September  of  that  year  there  appeared  to 
be  but  one  way  of  thinking  among  the  Kansas 
Free  State  men,  this  being  precisely  the  fact 
pointed  out  by  Colonel  William  A.  Phillips,  in 
his  "  Conquest  of  Kansas,"  which  is  altogether 
the  best  and  fairest  book  upon  the  confused 
history  of  that  time  and  place.  I  heard  of  no 
one  who  did  not  approve  of  the  act,  and  its 
beneficial  effects  were  universally  asserted, — 
Governor  Robinson  himself  fully  indorsing  it 


208  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

to  me,  and  maintaining,  like  the  rest,  that  it 
had  given  an  immediate  check  to  the  armed 
aggressions  of  the  Missourians. 

It  is  certain  that  at  a  public  meeting  held  at 
Lawrence,  Kansas,  three  years  later  (Decem 
ber  15,  1859),  Robinson  supported  resolutions 
saying  that  the  act  was  done  "from  sad  neces 
sity;"  that  on  August  30,  1877,  at  the  unveiling 
of  Brown's  monument  at  Osawatomie,  he  com 
pared  Brown  to  Jesus  Christ ;  and  that  on  Feb 
ruary  5,  1878,  he  wrote  in  a  letter  to  James 
Han  way,  "  I  never  had  much  doubt  that  Cap 
tain  Brown  was  the  author  of  the  blow  at  Pot- 
tawatomie,  for  the  reason  that  he  was  the  only 
man  who  comprehended  the  situation  and  saw 
the  absolute  necessity  of  some  such  blow  and 
had  the  nerve  to  strike  it."  Personally,  I  have 
never  fully  reconciled  myself  to  this  vindication 
of  "the  blow;"  but  that  Charles  Robinson, 
after  justifying  it  for  nearly  thirty  years,  and 
after  the  fighting  men  of  the  Territory  (Brown, 
Lane,  Montgomery)  were  dead,  should  have  be 
gun  to  pose  as  a  non-resistant,  and  should  later 
have  spoken  of  "  the  punishment  due  Brown 
for  his  crimes  in  Kansas," — this  appears  to 
me  to  have  been  either  simply  disgraceful,  or 
else  the  product  of  a  disordered  mind. 

The  people  in  Lawrence  had  been  passing 
through  a  variety  of  scenes  of  danger  and  dis- 


KANSAS   AND   JOHN   BROWN          209 

comfort  before  the  arrival  of  our  party  ;  and 
though  the  Missouri  attacks  had  practically 
ceased,  their  effects  remained  in  the  form  of 
general  poverty  and  of  privations  as  to  food,  es 
pecially  as  regarded  breadstuff s.  The  hotel  and 
Governor  Robinson's  house  had  been  burned, 
as  well  as  many  mills  and  bridges  ;  some  of 
the  best  citizens  were  in  jail  as  prisoners  of 
state,  and  their  families  were  really  suffering. 
When  I  visited  these  prisoners  at  Lecomp- 
ton,  one  man  reported  to  me  that  he  had  left 
six  children  at  home,  all  ill,  and  his  wife  acci 
dentally  away  and  unable  to  get  back ;  but  he 
supposed  that  "some  of  the  neighbors  would 
look  after  them."  Another  had  in  his  arms 
his  crying  baby,  said  to  be  the  first  child  born 
in  Lawrence,  and  named  after  the  settlement. 
Such  imprisonment  was  the  lot  of  more  than 
a  hundred  of  the  Free  State  men.  In  the 
more  rural  regions  —  though  everything  in 
Kansas  was  then  rural,  but  treeless  —  there 
was  a  perpetual  guerrilla  warfare  going  on  in 
a  vague  and  desultory  way;  and  the  parties 
were  so  far  defined  that  their  labels  attached 
even  to  dumb  animals,  and  people  spoke  of  an 
anti-slavery  colt  or  a  pro-slavery  cow. 

Several  of  us  visited,  near  Blanton's  Bridge, 
the  ruins  of  a  large  mill,  built  by  a  Pennsylva- 
nian  named  Straub.  We  met  there  his  daugh- 


210  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

ter,  who  was  a  noble -looking  girl  of  twenty, 
but  rather  needlessly  defiant  in  manner,  as  we 
thought,  till  at  last  she  said  frankly,  "  Why,  I 
thought  you  were  Missourians,  and  I  was  re 
solved  that  you  should  hear  the  truth."  We 
being  three  to  one,  this  attitude  was  certainly 
plucky ;  but  I  heard  later  that  this  girl  had 
walked  alone  into  the  midst  of  the  Missourians, 
while  the  mill  was  burning,  and  had  called  on 
one  of  them  to  give  up  her  favorite  horse  which 
he  had  taken.  This  she  did  with  such  spirit 
that  his  comrades  compelled  him  to  dismount 
and  surrender  it.  She  mounted  it  and  was 
riding  away,  when  the  man  followed  and  at 
tempted  to  get  the  halter  from  her  hand  ;  she 
held  on ;  he  took  his  bowie-knife  and  threatened 
to  cut  her  hand  off ;  she  dared  him  to  do  it  ; 
he  cut  the  rope  close  to  her  hand  and  got  con 
trol  of  the  horse.  She  slipped  off,  defeated  ; 
but  presently  two  of  the  fellow's  companions 
rode  up  and  gave  her  the  horse  once  more.  It 
was  a  time  when  a  horse  was  worth  more  than 
a  life  in  Kansas,  and  we  can  estimate  the  com 
pleteness  of  the  triumph. 

As  I  had  been  urged  to  preach  to  the  people 
of  Lawrence,  it  seemed  well  to  take  for  my  text 
that  which  was  employed  by  the  Rev.  John 
Martin  on  the  Sunday  after  he  had  fought  at 
Bunker  Hill :  "  Be  not  ye  afraid  of  them ;  re- 


KANSAS   AND   JOHN   BROWN          211 

member  the  Lord,  which  is  great  and  terri 
ble,  and  fight  for  your  brethren,  your  sons,  and 
your  daughters,  your  wives,  and  your  houses." 
Riding  a  few  days  after  to  Leavenworth,  then  a 
"  Border  Ruffian  "  town,  to  witness  an  election 
under  the  auspices  of  that  faction,  I  found  my 
self  in  a  village  provided  with  more  than  fifty 
liquor  shops  for  two  thousand  inhabitants,  while 
the  doors  of  the  hotel  were  almost  barricaded 
with  whiskey  casks.  Strangers  were  begged 
to  take  a  hand  in  the  voting,  as  if  it  were  some 
thing  to  drink ;  I  was  several  times  asked  to 
do  this,  and  my  plea  that  I  was  only  a  trav 
eler  was  set  aside  as  quite  irrelevant.  Many 
debated  on  the  most  available  point  at  which 
to  cast  their  pro- slavery  votes — for  the  Free 
State  men  denied  the  validity  of  the  election 
and  would  not  vote  at  all  —  as  coolly  as  a  knot 
of  village  shopkeepers  might  debate  whether 
to  go  to  Boston  or  New  York  for  purchases. 
Once  the  conversation  began  to  grow  rather 
personal.  Said  one  man,  just  from  Lecompton, 
"  Tell  you  what,  we  've  found  out  one  thing : 
there  's  a  preacher  going  about  here  preaching 
politics."  "Fact?"  and  "Is  that  so?"  were 
echoed  with  virtuous  indignation  on  all  sides. 
"That's  so,"  continued  he,  "and  he  fixes  it 
this  way:  first,  he  has  his  text  and  preaches 
religion  ;  then  he  drops  that  and  pitches  into 


212  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

politics ;  and  then  he  drops  that  too,  and  begins 
about  the  suff erin'  niggers  "  (this  with  ineffa 
ble  contempt).  "  And  what 's  more,  he  's  here 
in  Leavenworth  now."  "  What 's  his  name  ?  " 
exclaimed  several  eagerly.  "  Just  what  I  don't 
know,"  was  the  sorrowful  reply,  "and  I  should 
n't  know  him  if  I  saw  him ;  but  he 's  here, 
boys,  and  in  a  day  or  two  there  '11  be  some  gen 
tlemen  here  that  know  him."  (At  my  last 
speech  in  Lawrence  I  had  been  warned  that 
three  Missouri  spies  were  present.)  "  It 's  well 
we  've  got  him  here,  to  take  care  of  him,"  said 
one.  "Won't  our  boys  enjoy  running  him  out 
of  town  ? "  added  another  affectionately ;  while 
I  listened  with  dubious  enjoyment,  thinking 
that  I  might  perhaps  afford  useful  informa 
tion.  But  the  "  gentlemen  "  did  not  appear,  or 
else  were  in  search  of  higher  game ;  and  I  was 
to  leave  town  that  night,  at  any  rate,  for  St. 
Louis. 

I  took  the  steamer  Cataract  on  October  9, 
1856,  and  went  down  the  river ;  my  chief  com 
panions  being  a  large  party  of  youths  from 
Virginia  and  South  Carolina,  who  had  come 
into  the  Territory  of  Kansas  confessedly  to 
take  a  hand  in  the  election,  and  also  in  the 
fighting,  should  a  chance  be  offered.  They 
were  drunken,  gambling,  quarrelsome  boys,  but 
otherwise  affable  enough,  with  the  pleasant 


KANSAS   AND   JOHN   BROWN  213 

manners  and  soft  accent  of  the  South.  Nothing 
could  be  more  natve  than  their  confidences. 
"  Don't  you  remember,"  said  one,  with  a  sort 
of  tender  regret,  "  how  when  we  went  up  the 
river  we  were  all  of  us  drunk  all  the  time  ? " 
"  So  we  would  be  now,"  replied  his  friend 
sadly,  "only  we  ain't  got  no  money."  They 
said  that  they  had  been  inveigled  into  coming 
by  Atchison  and  others,  on  the  promise  of 
support  for  a  year  and  fifty  dollars  bonus,  but 
that  they  had  got  neither,  and  had  barely 
enough  to  take  them  to  St.  Louis.  "  Let  me 
once  get  home,"  said  the  same  youth  who  made 
the  above  confession,  "  and  I  'd  stay  at  home, 
sure.  It  has  cost  me  the  price  of  one  good 
nigger  just  for  board  and  liquor,  since  I  left 
home."  Curiously  enough,  in  reading  a  copy 
of  Mrs.  Stowe's  "Dred,"  just  published,  which 
I  had  bought  in  Lawrence,  I  opened  soon  after 
on  the  apt  Scriptural  quotation,  "Woe  unto 
them,  for  they  have  cast  lots  for  my  people, 
.  .  .  and  sold  a  girl  for  wine,  that  they  may 
drink ! " 

The  few  Free  State  men  on  board  were 
naturally  not  aggressive,  although  we  spent  a 
whole  day  on  a  sand-bank,  a  thing  not  condu 
cive  to  serenity  of  mind ;  but  the  steamer 
which  pulled  us  off  had  on  board  the  secretary 
of  the  Kansas  State  Committee,  Miles  Moore, 


214  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

and  there  had  been  an  effort  to  lynch  him, 
prevented  only  by  Governor  Cobb,  of  Alabama, 
who  was  on  the  boat.  Renewal  of  hostilities 
being  threatened,  I  invited  Moore  on  board  the 
Cataract  at  Jefferson  City,  where  we  lay  over 
night.  He  and  I  barricaded  ourselves  in  my 
stateroom,  with  our  revolvers  ready,  but  heard 
only  occasional  threats  from  outside ;  there 
was  no  actual  assault.  When  we  reached  St. 
Louis,  —  after  more  than  four  days  on  board 
the  steamboat,  —  and  I  finally  discharged  my 
revolver  and  put  it  away  in  my  trunk,  there 
occurred  the  most  curious  reaction  from  the 
feeling  with  which  I  had  first  loaded  it.  When 
it  fully  came  home  to  me  that  all  the  tonic 
life  of  the  last  six  weeks  was  ended,  and  that 
thenceforward,  if  any  danger  impended,  the 
proper  thing  would  be  to  look  meekly  about 
for  a  policeman,  it  seemed  as  if  all  the  vigor 
had  suddenly  gone  out  of  me,  and  a  despicable 
effeminacy  had  set  in.  I  could  at  that  moment 
perfectly  understand  how  Rob  Roy,  wishing  to 
repay  a  debt  he  owed  to  the  Edinburgh  pro 
fessor,  offered  to  take  his  benefactor's  son  back 
into  the  Highlands  "and  make  a  man  of  him." 
In  twenty-four  hours,  however,  civilization  reas- 
sumed  its  force,  and  Kansas  appeared  as  far  off 
as  Culloden. 
After  returning  home,  I  kept  up  for  a  long 


KANSAS   AND  JOHN   BROWN  215 

time  an  active  correspondence  with  some  of 
the  leading  Kansas  men,  including  Montgom 
ery,  Hinton,  my  old  ally  Martin  Stowell,  and 
my  associate  brigadier,  Samuel  F.  Tappan,  after 
wards  lieutenant-colonel  of  the  First  Colorado 
Cavalry.  Some  of  these  wrote  and  received 
letters  under  feigned  names,  because  many  of 
the  post-offices  in  the  Territory  were  in  the 
hands  of  pro-slavery  men  who  were  suspected  of 
tampering  with  correspondence.  I  also  spoke 
on  Kansas  matters  by  request,  before  the  legis 
latures  of  Massachusetts  and  Vermont,  and  was 
nominated  by  the  Worcester  Republicans  for 
the  state  legislature  on  the  issue  of  Kansas 
sympathy  ;  but  declined,  feeling  that  I  must  at 
length  recognize  the  claim  of  the  Free  Church 
on  my  attention.  I  was  brought  much  in  con 
tact  with  that  noble  and  self -devoted  man, 
George  Luther  Stearns,  of  Medford,  who  gave, 
first  and  last,  ten  thousand  dollars  to  maintain 
liberty  in  the  new  Territory ;  and  also  with  Dr. 
Howe  and  Frank  Sanborn,  then  the  leading 
men  in  the  Massachusetts  Kansas  Committee. 
In  looking  back  on  the  inevitable  confusion  of 
that  period,  and  the  strange  way  in  which  men 
who  had  been  heroic  in  danger  grew  demoral 
ized  in  politics,  I  have  often  recalled  as  true 
the  remark  made  by  Sanborn,  that  it  was  diffi 
cult  for  a  man  to  have  much  to  do  with  the 


2i6  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

affairs  of  Kansas,  even  at  long  range,  without 
developing  a  crack  in  his  brain. 

It  will  doubtless  seem  to  some  readers  a 
very  natural  transition  to  pass  from  this  asser 
tion  to  the  later  events  which  brought  some  of 
the  above-named  men  into  intimate  relations 
with  Captain  John  Brown.  It  has  never  been 
quite  clear  to  me  whether  I  saw  him  in  Kansas 
or  not ;  he  was  then  in  hiding,  and  I  remem 
ber  to  have  been  taken  somewhat  covertly  to 
a  house  in  Lawrence,  for  an  interview  with  a 
fugitive  slave  who  was  being  sheltered  by  a 
white  man  ;  and  though  this  man's  name,  which 
I  have  forgotten,  was  certainly  not  Brown,  it 
may  have  been  one  of  Brown's  aliases.  My 
first  conscious  acquaintance  with  that  leader 
was  nearly  a  year  and  a  half  later,  when  I  re 
ceived  from  him  this  communication,  implying, 
as  will  be  seen,  that  we  had  met  before :  — 

ROCHESTER,  N.  Y.  zd  Petty,  1858. 
MY  DEAR  SIR,  —  I  am  here  concealing  my 
whereabouts  for  good  reasons  (as  I  think)  not 
however  from  any  anxiety  about  my  personal 
safety.  I  have  been  told  that  you  are  both  a 
true  man:  and  a  true  abolitionist;  "and  I 
partly  believe,"  the  whole  story.  Last  fall  I 
undertook  to  raise  from  $500  to  $1000,  for 
secret  service -,  and  succeeded  in  getting  $500. 


KANSAS   AND   JOHN    BROWN  217 

I  now  want  to  get  for  the  perfecting  of  BY  FAR 
the  most  important  undertaking  of  my  whole 
life ;  from  $500  to  $800  within  the  next  sixty 
days.  I  have  written  Rev.  Theodore  Parker, 
George  L.  Stearns  and  F.  B.  Sanborn  Esqrs. 
on  the  subject ;  but  do  not  know  as  either  Mr. 
Stearns  or  Mr.  Sanborn  are  abolitionists.  I 
suppose  they  are.  Can  you  be  induced  to  op- 
perate  at  Worcester  and  elsewhere  during  that 
time  to  raise  from  #«/*-slavery  men  and  wo 
men  (or  any  other  parties)  some  part  of  that 
amount  ?  I  wish  to  keep  it  entirely  still  about 
where  I  am  ;  and  will  be  greatly  obliged  if  you 
will  consider  this  communication  strictly  confi 
dential:  unless  it  may  be  with  such  as  you  are 
sure  will  feel  and  act  and  keep  very  still.  Please 
be  so  kind  as  to  write  N.  Hawkins  on  the  sub 
ject,  Care  of  Wm.  I.  Watkins,  Esqr.  Rochester, 
N.  Y.  Should  be  most  happy  to  meet  you 
again ;  and  talk  matters  more  freely.  Hope 
this  is  my  last  effort  in  the  begging  line. 
Very  Respectfully  your  Friend, 

JOHN  BROWN. 

This  name,  "  N.  Hawkins,"  was  Brown's 
favorite  alias.  The  phrase  "partly  believe" 
was  a  bit  of  newspaper  slang  of  that  period, 
but  came  originally  from  Paul's  First  Epistle  to 
the  Corinthians  (xl  18)  whence  Brown  may  well 


2i8  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

have  taken  it.  I  wrote  in  return,  wishing  for 
farther  information,  and  asking  if  the  "  under 
ground  railroad  "  business  was  what  he  had  in 
view.  In  a  few  days  came  this  reply  :  — 

ROCHESTER,  N.  Y.  i2tk  Petty,  1858. 
MY  DEAR  SIR,  — I  have  just  read  your  kind 
letter  of  the  8th  inst,  and  will  now  say  that 
Rail  Road  business  on  a  somewhat  extended 
scale  is  the  identical  object  for  which  I  am  try 
ing  to  get  means.  I  have  been  connected  with 
that  business  as  commonly  conducted  from  my 
boyhood  and  never  let  an  opportunity  slip.  I 
have  been  opperating  to  some  purpose  the  past 
season  ;  but  I  now  have  a  measure  on  foot  that 
I  feel  sure  would  awaken  in  you  something 
more  than  a  common  interest  if  you  could  un 
derstand  it.  I  have  just  written  my  friends 
G.  L.  Stearns  and  F.  B.  Sanborn  asking  them 
to  meet  me  for  consultation  at  Gerrit  Smith's, 
Peterboro'  [N.  Y.].  I  am  very  anxious  to  have 
you  come  along ;  certain  as  I  feel,  that  you  will 
never  regret  having  been  one  of  the  council.  I 
would  most  gladly  pay  your  expenses  had  I  the 
means  to  spare.  Will  you  come  on?  Please 
write  as  before. 

Your  Friend  JOHN  BROWN. 

As  I  could  not  go  to  Peterboro',  he  made  an 


KANSAS   AND  JOHN    BROWN  219 

appointment  in  Boston,  and  I  met  him  in  his 
room  at  the  American  House  in  March,  1858. 
I  saw  before  me  a  man  whose  mere  appearance 
and  bearing  refuted  in  advance  some  of  the 
strange  perversions  which  have  found  their  way 
into  many  books,  and  which  have  often  wholly 
missed  the  type  to  which  he  belonged.  In  his 
thin,  worn,  resolute  face  there  were  the  signs 
of  a  fire  which  might  wear  him  out,  and  practi 
cally  did  so,  but  nothing  of  pettiness  or  base 
ness  ;  and  his  talk  was  calm,  persuasive,  and 
coherent.  He  was  simply  a  high-minded,  un 
selfish,  belated  Covenanter;  a  man  whom  Sir 
Walter  Scott  might  have  drawn,  but  whom  such 
writers  as  Nicolay  and  Hay,  for  instance,  have 
utterly  failed  to  delineate.  To  describe  him  in 
their  words  as  "  clean  but  coarse  "  is  curiously 
wide  of  the  mark ;  he  had  no  more  of  coarseness 
than  was  to  be  found  in  Habakkuk  Muckle- 
wrath  or  in  George  Eliot's  Adam  Bede ;  he 
had,  on  the  contrary,  that  religious  elevation 
which  is  itself  a  kind  of  refinement,  —  the 
quality  one  may  see  expressed  in  many  a  ven 
erable  Quaker  face  at  yearly  meeting.  Coarse 
ness  absolutely  repelled  him  ;  he  was  so  strict 
as  to  the  demeanor  of  his  men  that  his  band 
was  always  kept  small,  while  that  of  Lane  was 
large  ;  he  had  little  humor,  and  none  of  the  hu 
morist's  temptation  towards  questionable  con- 


220  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

versation.  Again,  to  call  him  "ambitious  to 
irritation,"  in  the  words  of  the  same  authors, 
is  equally  wide  of  the  mark.  I  saw  him  after 
wards  deeply  disappointed  and  thwarted,  and 
this  long  before  his  final  failure,  but  never 
could  find  in  him  a  trace  of  mere  ambition; 
he  lived,  as  he  finally  died,  absolutely  absorbed 
in  one  idea ;  and  it  is  as  a  pure  enthusiast  — 
fanatic,  if  you  please  —  that  he  is  to  be  judged. 
His  belief  was  that  an  all-seeing  God  had  cre 
ated  the  Alleghany  Mountains  from  all  eternity 
as  the  predestined  refuge  for  a  body  of  fugi 
tive  slaves.  He  had  traversed  those  mountains 
in  his  youth,  as  a  surveyor,  and  knew  points 
which  could  be  held  by  a  hundred  men  against 
a  thousand ;  he  showed  me  rough  charts  of  some 
of  those  localities  and  plans  of  connected  moun 
tain  fortresses  which  he  had  devised. 

Of  grand  tactics  and  strategy  Brown  knew 
as  little  as  Garibaldi ;  but  he  had  studied  guer 
rilla  warfare  for  himself  in  books,  as  well  as  in 
Europe,  and  had  for  a  preceptor  Hugh  Forbes, 
an  Englishman  who  had  been  a  Garibaldian 
soldier.  Brown's  plan  was  simply  to  penetrate 
Virginia  with  a  few  comrades,  to  keep  utterly 
clear  of  all  attempt  to  create  slave  insurrection, 
but  to  get  together  bands  and  families  of  fugi 
tive  slaves,  and  then  be  guided  by  events.  If 
he  could  establish  them  permanently  in  those 


KANSAS   AND  JOHN   BROWN          221 

fastnesses,  like  the  Maroons  of  Jamaica  and 
Surinam,  so  much  the  better  ;  if  not,  he  would 
make  a  break  from  time  to  time,  and  take  par 
ties  to  Canada,  by  paths  already  familiar  to 
him.  All  this  he  explained  to  me  and  others, 
plainly  and  calmly,  and  there  was  nothing  in 
it  that  we  considered  either  objectionable  or 
impracticable  ;  so  that  his  friends  in  Boston  — 
Theodore  Parker,  Howe,  Stearns,  Sanborn,  and 
myself  —  were  ready  to  cooperate  in  his  plan 
as  thus  limited.  Of  the  wider  organization 
and  membership  afterwards  formed  by  him  in 
Canada  we  of  course  knew  nothing,  nor  could 
we  foresee  the  imprudence  which  finally  per 
verted  the  attack  into  a  defeat.  We  helped 
him  in  raising  the  money,  and  he  seemed  draw 
ing  toward  the  consummation  of  his  plans, 
when  letters  began  to  come  to  his  Massachu 
setts  supporters  from  Hugh  Forbes,  already 
mentioned,  threatening  to  make  the  whole  mat 
ter  public  unless  we  could  satisfy  certain  very  un 
reasonable  demands  for  money.  On  this  point 
our  committee  was  at  once  divided,  not  as  to  re 
fusing  the  preposterous  demands,  but  because 
the  majority  thought  that  this  threat  of  disclo 
sure  made  necessary  an  indefinite  postponement 
of  the  whole  affair ;  while  Howe  and  myself,  and 
Brown  also,  as  it  proved,  thought  otherwise. 
He  came  again  to  Boston  (May  31,  1858), 


222  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

when  I  talked  with  him  alone,  and  he  held,  as 
I  had  done,  that  Forbes  could  do  him  no  real 
harm  ;  that  if  people  believed  Forbes  they 
would  underrate  his  (Brown's)  strength,  which 
was  just  the  thing  he  wished ;  or  if  they  over 
rated  it,  "the  increased  terror  would  perhaps 
counterbalance  this."  If  he  had  the  means, 
he  would  not  lose  a  day.  But  as  I  could  not, 
unaided,  provide  the  means,  I  was  obliged  to 
yield,  as  he  did.  He  consented  to  postpone 
the  enterprise  and  return  to  Kansas,  carrying 
with  him  $500  in  gold,  and  an  order  for  certain 
arms  at  Tabor,  which  had  belonged  originally 
to  the  State  Kansas  Committee,  but  had  since 
been  transferred,  in  consideration  of  a  debt,  to 
our  friend  Stearns,  who  gave  them  to  Brown 
on  his  own  responsibility.  Nearly  a  year  now 
passed,  during  which  I  rarely  heard  from  Brown, 
and  thought  that  perhaps  his  whole  project 
had  been  abandoned.  A  new  effort  to  raise 
money  was  made  at  Boston  in  the  spring  of 
1859,  but  I  took  little  part  in  it.  It  had  all 
begun  to  seem  to  me  rather  chimerical.  The 
amount  of  $2000  was,  nevertheless,  raised  for 
him  at  Boston,  in  June,  1859,  an^  I  find  tnat 
Sanborn  wrote  to  me  (June  4),  "Brown  has 
set  out  on  his  expedition ;"  and  then  on  Octo 
ber  6,  "The  $300  desired  has  been  made  up 
and  received.  Four  or  five  men  will  be  on  the 


KANSAS   AND  JOHN   BROWN  223 

ground  next  week  from  these  regions  and  else 
where."  Brown's  address  was  at  this  time  at 
West  Andover,  Ohio,  and  the  impression  was 
that  the  foray  would  begin  in  that  region,  if  at 
all.  Nobody  mentioned  Harper's  Ferry. 

Ten  days  later  the  blow  came.  I  went  into 
a  newspaper  shop  in  Worcester  one  morning, 
and  heard  some  one  remark  casually,  "  Old 
Osawatomie  Brown  has  got  himself  into  a  tight 
place  at  last."  I  grasped  eagerly  at  the  morn 
ing  paper,  and  read  the  whole  story.  Natu 
rally,  my  first  feeling  was  one  of  remorse,  that 
the  men  who  had  given  him  money  and  arms 
should  not  actually  have  been  by  his  side.  In 
my  own  case,  however,  the  justification  was 
perfectly  clear.  Repeated  postponements  had 
taken  the  edge  off  from  expectation,  and  the 
whole  enterprise  had  grown  rather  vague  and 
dubious  in  my  mind.  I  certainly  had  not  that 
degree  of  faith  in  it  which  would  have  led  me 
to  abandon  all  else,  and  wait  nearly  a  year  and 
a  half  for  the  opportunity  of  fulfillment ;  and 
indeed  it  became  obvious  at  last  that  this  longer 
postponement  had  somewhat  disturbed  the  deli 
cate  balance  of  the  zealot's  mind,  and  had  made 
him,  at  the  very  outset,  defy  the  whole  power 
of  the  United  States  government,  and  that 
within  easy  reach  of  Washington.  Nothing  of 
this  kind  was  included  in  his  original  plans. 


224  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

At  any  rate,  since  we  were  not  with  him,  the 
first  question  was  what  part  we  were  now  to 
take.  It  will  be  remembered  that  the  explo 
sion  of  the  Brown  affair  caused  at  once  a  vast 
amount  of  inquiry  at  Washington,  and  many 
were  the  threats  of  prosecuting  Brown's  previ 
ous  friends  and  supporters.  There  was  some 
talk  of  flight  to  Canada,  and  one  or  two  of 
these  persons  actually  went  thither  or  to  Eu 
rope.  It  always  seemed  to  me  undesirable  to 
do  this  ;  it  rather  looked  as  if,  having  befriended 
Brown's  plans  so  far  as  we  understood  them, 
it  was  our  duty  to  stand  our  ground  and  give 
him  our  moral  support,  at  least  on  the  witness- 
stand.  This  view  was  perhaps  easier  for  me  to 
take,  as  my  name  was  only  incidentally  men 
tioned  in  the  newspapers  ;  and  it  is  only  within 
a  few  months  that  I  have  discovered  that  it  had 
been  early  brought,  with  that  of  Sanborn,  to 
the  express  attention  of  Governor  Wise,  of  Vir 
ginia.  Among  his  papers  captured  at  Charles- 
town,  Va.,  by  Major  James  Savage,  of  the  Sec 
ond  Massachusetts  Infantry,  was  this  anony 
mous  letter,  received  by  the  Virginia  governor, 
and  indorsed  by  him  for  transmission  to  some 
one  else,  probably  in  Congress,  —  but  perhaps 
never  forwarded.  It  read  as  follows  :  "  There 
are  two  persons  in  Massachusetts,  and  I  think 
only  two,  who,  if  summoned  as  witnesses,  can  ex- 


KANSAS   AND   JOHN   BROWN  225 

plain  the  whole  of  Brown's  plot.  Their  names 
are  Francis  B.  Sanborn,  of  Concord,  and  T. 
W.  Higginson,  of  Worcester,  Mass.  No  time 
should  be  lost,  as  they  may  abscond,  but  I  do 
not  think  they  will,  as  they  think  you  would 
not  think  it  best  to  send  for  them.  A  Friend 
of  Order."  This  was  indorsed  "A  Friend  to 
Gov.  Wise,  Oct.,  1859.  Call  attention  to  this." 
And  just  below,  "  Sent  to  me,  now  sent  to 
you  for  what  it  is  worth.  Richmond,  Oct.  29, 
H.  A.  W.  [Henry  A.  Wise.]  A.  Huntin  [pre 
sumably  the  name  of  a  secretary]." 

This  communication  was  written  during  the 
trial  of  Captain  Brown,  and  a  few  days  before 
his  sentence,  which  was  pronounced  on  Novem 
ber  2.  It  is  hard  to  say  whether  it  had  any 
direct  bearing  on  the  arrest  of  Sanborn  at  Con 
cord  in  the  following  April.  It  is  very  prob 
able  that  it  had,  and  if  so,  his  arrest,  had  it  been 
sustained  by  the  court,  might  have  been  fol 
lowed  by  mine ;  but  it  would  have  been  quite 
superfluous,  for  I  should  at  any  time  have  been 
ready  to  go  if  summoned,  and  should,  in  fact, 
have  thought  it  rather  due  to  the  memory  of 
Brown.  I  could  at  least  have  made  it  plain 
that  anything  like  slave  insurrection,  in  the  or 
dinary  sense  of  the  word,  was  remote  from  his 
thoughts,  and  that  his  plan  was  wholly  different. 
He  would  have  limited  himself  to  advising  a 


226  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

fugitive  slave,  if  intercepted,  to  shoot  down  any 
one  who  attempted  to  arrest  him  ;  and  this  ad 
vice  would  have  been  given  by  every  Abolition 
ist,  unless  a  non-resistant. 

There  was,  of  course,  an  immediate  impulse 
to  rescue  Brown  from  prison.  I  do  not  know 
how  far  this  extended,  and  can  only  vouch  for 
myself.  The  primary  obstacle  to  it  was  that 
one  of  Brown's  first  acts,  on  meeting  a  North 
ern  friend  in  his  prison,  had  been  positively  to 
prohibit  any  such  attempt ;  the  message  being 
sent  North  by  Judge  Thomas  Russell,  from 
whom  I  received  it  at  the  railway  station  on  his 
arrival.  This  barred  the  way  effectually,  for 
after  Brown  had  taken  that  position  he  would 
have  adhered  to  it.  It  occurred  to  me,  how 
ever,  that  his  wife's  presence  would  move  him, 
if  anything  could,  and  that  she  might  also  be 
a  valuable  medium  of  communication,  should  he 
finally  yield  to  the  wishes  of  his  friends.  For 
this  purpose  I  went  to  North  Elba,  New  York, 
the  mountain  home  of  the  Browns,  to  fetch  her, 
and  wrote,  after  that  memorable  trip,  a  full  ac 
count  of  it,  which  was  prefixed  to  Redpath's 
"Life  of  Brown."  Upon  entering  for  the  first 
time  the  superb  scenery  of  the  Adirondacks,  I 
saw  myself  in  a  region  which  was  a  fit  setting 
for  the  heroic  family  to  be  visited.  I  found 
them  poor,  abstemious,  patient,  unflinching. 


KANSAS    AND  JOHN   BROWN  227 

They  felt  that  the  men  of  their  household  had 
given  their  lives  for  freedom,  and  there  was  no 
weak  regret,  no  wish  to  hold  them  back.  In 
the  family  was  Annie  Brown,  who  had  been 
with  the  conspirators  in  Virginia,  and  had  kept 
house  and  cooked  for  them.  There  were  also 
the  widows  of  the  two  slain  sons,  young  girls 
of  sixteen  and  twenty,  one  of  them  having  also 
lost  two  brothers  at  Harper's  Ferry.  It  illus 
trates  the  frugal  way  in  which  the  Browns  had 
lived  that  the  younger  of  these  two  widows  was 
not  regarded  by  the  household  as  being  abso 
lutely  destitute,  because  her  husband  had  left 
her  five  sheep,  valued  at  two  dollars  apiece. 

On  my  return,  Mrs.  Brown  the  elder  rode 
with  me  for  a  whole  day  on  a  buckboard  to 
Keeseville,  and  I  had  much  talk  with  her.  I 
have  never  in  my  life  been  dn  contact  with  a 
nature  more  dignified  and  noble ;  a  Roman 
matron  touched  with  the  finer  element  of  Chris 
tianity.  She  told  me  that  this  plan  had  occu 
pied  her  husband's  thoughts  and  prayers  for 
twenty  years ;  that  he  always  believed  himself 
an  instrument  in  the  hands  of  Providence,  and 
she  believed  it  too.  She  had  always  prayed 
that  he  might  be  killed  in  fight  rather  than  fall 
into  the  hands  of  slaveholders,  but  she  "  could 
not  regret  it  now,  in  view  of  the  noble  words 
of  freedom  which  it  had  been  his  privilege  to 


228  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

utter."  She  also  said,  "I  have  had  thirteen 
children,  and  only  four  are  left ;  but  if  I  am  to 
see  the  ruin  of  my  house,  I  cannot  but  hope  that 
Providence  may  bring  out  of  it  some  benefit 
for  the  poor  slaves."  She  little  foresaw  how, 
within  two  years,  her  dead  husband's  name 
would  ring  through  the  defiles  of  the  Virginia 
mountains  in  the  songs  of  the  Union  soldiers. 
When,  the  next  day,  I  had  to  put  into  her 
hands,  in  the  railway-car,  the  newspaper  contain 
ing  his  death-warrant,  she  bent  her  head  for  a 
few  moments  on  the  back  of  the  seat  before  us, 
and  then  lifted  it  again  unchanged.  Her  errand 
was  absolutely  in  vain,  Brown  refusing  even  to 
see  her,  possibly  distrusting  his  own  firmness, 
or  wishing  to  put  it  above  all  possibility  of  peril ; 
and  she  returned  to  her  mountain  home. 

Meanwhile,  one  of  the  few  of  his  band  who 
had  escaped  had  come  to  my  door  one  day  in 
Worcester.  When  he  reached  my  house,  he 
appeared  utterly  demented  after  the  danger 
and  privations  of  his  flight  through  the  moun 
tains.  He  could  not  speak  two  coherent  sen 
tences,  and  I  was  grateful  when,  after  twenty- 
four  hours,  I  could  send  him  to  his  friends  in 
Boston.  Another  and  far  abler  refugee  from 
Harper's  Ferry  was  Charles  Plummer  Tidd, 
one  of  our  Worcester  emigrants,  —  afterwards 
well  known  as  Sergeant  Charles  Plummer  of 


KANSAS   AND   JOHN   BROWN  229 

the  Twenty  -  First  Massachusetts,  —  who  told 
me,  in  an  interview  on  February  10,  1860,  of 
which  I  still  preserve  the  written  record,  "  All 
the  boys  opposed  Harper's  Ferry,  the  younger 
Browns  most  of  all.  In  September  it  nearly 
broke  up  the  camp.  He  himself  [Tidd]  left, 
almost  quarreling  with  Brown.  Finally,  when 
they  consented,  it  was  with  the  agreement  that 
men  should  be  sent  in  each  direction  to  burn 
bridges ;"  which  was  not  done,  however.  Tidd 
pronounced  the  Harper's  Ferry  attack  "the 
only  mistake  Brown  ever  made,"  and  attributed 
it,  as  it  is  now  generally  assigned,  to  a  final  loss 
of  mental  balance  from  overbrooding  on  one 
idea.  Brown's  general  project  he  still  heartily 
indorsed  ;  saying  that  the  Virginia  mountains 
were  "  the  best  guerrilla  country  in  the  world," 
—  all  crags  and  dense  laurel  thickets;  that 
"twenty -five  men  there  could  paralyze  the 
whole  business  of  the  South,"  and  that  "no 
body  could  take  them."  The  negroes,  he  said, 
had  proved  ready  enough  to  follow  Brown,  but 
naturally  slipped  back  to  their  masters  when 
they  saw  that  the  enterprise  was  to  fail. 

The  same  question  of  a  rescue  presented  it 
self,  after  Captain  Brown's  execution,  in  regard 
to  the  two  members  of  his  party  whose  trial 
and  conviction  took  place  two  months  later,  — 
Stevens  and  Hazlett,  the  former  of  whom  I  had 


230  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

met  with  Lane's  party  in  Kansas.  In  Feb 
ruary,  1860,  after  urgent  appeals  from  Mrs.  Re 
becca  Spring,  of  New  York,  who  had  visited 
these  men,  I  made  up  my  mind  to  use  for 
their  relief  a  portion  of  certain  funds  placed 
in  my  hands  for  the  benefit  of  the  Brown  fam 
ily;  first,  of  course,  consulting  Mrs.  Brown, 
who  fully  approved.  Thayer  and  Eldridge, 
two  young  publishers  in  Boston,  also  took  an 
interest  in  raising  funds  for  this  purpose  ;  and 
the  fact  is  fixed  in  my  memory  by  the  cir 
cumstance  that,  on  visiting  their  shop  one  day, 
during  the  negotiations,  I  met  for  the  first 
and  only  time  Walt  Whitman.  He  was  there 
to  consult  them  about  the  publication  of  his 
poems,  and  I  saw  before  me,  sitting  on  the 
counter,  a  handsome,  burly  man,  heavily  built, 
and  not  looking,  to  my  gymnasium-trained  eye, 
in  really  good  condition  for  athletic  work.  I 
perhaps  felt  a  little  prejudiced  against  him  from 
having  read  his  "  Leaves  of  Grass  "  on  a  voy 
age,  in  the  early  stages  of  seasickness,  —  a  fact 
which  doubtless  increased  for  me  the  intrinsic 
unsavoriness  of  certain  passages.  But  the  per 
sonal  impression  made  on  me  by  the  poet  was 
not  so  much  of  manliness  as  of  Boweriness,  if  I 
may  coin  the  phrase  ;  indeed  rather  suggesting 
Sidney  Lanier's  subsequent  vigorous  phrase, 
"a  dandy  roustabout."  This  passing  impres- 


KANSAS   AND  JOHN   BROWN          231 

sion  did  not  hinder  me  from  thinking  of  Whit 
man  with  hope  and  satisfaction  at  a  later  day 
when  regiments  were  to  be  raised  for  the  war, 
when  the  Bowery  seemed  the  very  place  to 
enlist  them,  and  even  "Billy  Wilson's  Zou 
aves"  were  hailed  with  delight.  When,  how 
ever,  after  waiting  a  year  or  more,  Whitman  de 
cided  that  the  proper  post  for  him  was  hospital 
service,  I  confess  to  feeling  a  reaction,  which  was 
rather  increased  than  diminished  by  his  profuse 
celebration  of  his  own  labors  in  that  direction. 
Hospital  attendance  is  a  fine  thing,  no  doubt, 
yet  if  all  men,  South  and  North,  had  taken  the 
same  view  of  their  duty  that  Whitman  held, 
there  would  have  been  no  occasion  for  hospi 
tals  on  either  side. 

The  only  persons  beside  myself  who  were 
intimately  acquainted  with  the  project  formed 
for  rescuing  Stevens  and  Hazlett  were  Richard 
H.  Hinton,  already  mentioned,  and  John  W. 
LeBarnes,  afterwards  lieutenant  of  a  German 
company  in  the  Second  Massachusetts  Infantry 
during  the  Civil  War.  It  was  decided  that  an 
attempt  at  rescue  could  best  be  made  from 
a  rendezvous  at  Harrisburg,  Pennsylvania,  and 
that  Hinton  should  go  to  Kansas,  supplied  with 
money  by  LeBarnes  and  myself,  to  get  the  co 
operation  of  Captain  James  Montgomery  and 
eight  or  ten  tried  and  trusty  men.  I  was  to 


232  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

meet  these  men  at  Harrisburg,  while  LeBarnes 
was  to  secure  a  reinforcement  of  German- 
Americans,  among  whom  he  had  much  influ 
ence,  from  New  York.  Only  one  man  in  Har 
risburg,  an  active  Abolitionist,  knew  of  our 
purpose,  and  I  met  Montgomery  at  this  man's 
house,  after  taking  up  my  own  residence,  on 
February  17,  1860,  at  the  United  States  Hotel, 
under  the  name  of  Charles  P.  Carter.  I  had 
met  the  guerrilla  leader  once  before  in  Kansas, 
and  we  now  consulted  about  the  expedition, 
which  presented  no  ordinary  obstacles. 

The  enterprise  would  involve  traversing  fifty 
miles  of  mountain  country  by  night,  at  the  rate 
of  about  ten  miles  each  night,  carrying  arms, 
ammunition,  blankets,  and  a  week's  rations, 
with  the  frequent  necessity  of  camping  without 
fire  in  February,  and  with  the  certainty  of  detec 
tion  in  case  of  snow.  It  would  include  cross 
ing  the  Potomac,  possibly  at  a  point  where 
there  was  neither  a  bridge  nor  a  ford.  It  would 
culminate  in  an  attack  on  a  building  with  a 
wall  fourteen  feet  high,  with  two  sentinels  out 
side  and  twenty-five  inside  ;  with  a  certainty  of 
raising  the  town  in  the  process,  and  then,  if 
successful,  with  the  need  of  retreating,  perhaps 
with  wounded  men  and  probably  by  daylight. 
These  were  the  difficulties  that  Montgomery, 
as  our  leader,  had  to  face ;  and  although,  in 


KANSAS   AND   JOHN    BROWN  233 

Kansas,  he  had  taken  Fort  Scott  with  twenty- 
two  men  against  sixty-eight,  yet  this  was  quite  a 
different  affair.  For  myself,  I  had  at  that  time 
such  confidence  in  his  guidance  that  the  words 
of  the  Scotch  ballad  often  rang  in  my  ears  :  — 

"  I  could  ha'e  ridden  the  border  through 
Had  Christie  Graeme  been  at  my  back." 

Lithe,  quick,  low -voiced,  reticent,  keen,  he 
seemed  the  ideal  of  a  partisan  leader,  and  was, 
indeed,  a  curious  compound  of  the  moss-trooper 
and  the  detective.  Among  his  men  were  Car 
penter,  Pike,  Shamans,  Rice,  Gardner,  Willis, 
and  Silas  Soule,  —  all  well  known  in  Kansas. 
The  last  three  of  these  men  had  lately  been 
among  the  rescuers  of  Dr.  Doy  from  jail  at  St. 
Joseph,  Missouri,  —  a  town  of  eleven  thousand 
inhabitants,  —  under  circumstances  of  peculiar 
daring ;  one  of  them  personating  a  horse-thief 
and  two  others  the  officers  who  had  arrested 
him,  and  thus  getting  admission  to  the  jail. 

The  first  need  was  to  make  exploration  of 
the  localities,  and,  taking  with  him  one  of  his 
companions,  —  a  man,  as  it  proved,  of  great 
resources,  —  Montgomery  set  out  by  night  and 
was  gone  several  days.  While  he  examined 
the  whole  region,  —  his  native  Kentucky  accent 
saving  him  from  all  suspicion,  —  his  comrade 
penetrated  into  the  very  jail,  in  the  guise  of 
a  jovial,  half -drunken  Irishman,  and  got  speech 


234  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

with  the  prisoners,  who  were  thus  notified  of 
the  proposed  rescue.  They  expressed  great 
distrust  of  it,  and  this  partly  because,  even  if 
successful,  it  would  endanger  the  life  of  the 
jailer,  Avis,  who  had  won  their  gratitude,  as 
well  as  Brown's,  by  his  great  kindness.  I  have 
never  known  whether  this  opposition  had  any 
covert  influence  on  the  mind  of  Montgomery, 
but  I  know  that  he  came  back  at  last,  and 
quenched  all  our  hopes  by  deciding  that  a  se 
vere  snowstorm  which  had  just  occurred  ren 
dered  the  enterprise  absolutely  hopeless.  I 
was  not  at  the  time  quite  satisfied  with  this 
opinion,  but  it  was  impossible  to  overrule  our 
leader ;  and  on  visiting  that  region  and  the  jail 
itself,  many  years  later,  I  was  forced  to  believe 
him  wholly  right.  At  any  rate,  it  was  decided 
by  vote  of  the  party  to  abandon  the  expedition, 
and  the  men  were  sent  back  to  Kansas,  their 
arms  being  forwarded  to  Worcester,  while  I 
went  to  Antioch,  Ohio,  to  give  a  promised  lec 
ture  to  the  college  students,  and  then  returned 
home.  I  now  recognize  how  almost  hopeless 
the  whole  enterprise  had  appeared  in  my  own 
mind  :  the  first  entry  in  my  notebook,  after 
returning  (March  i,  1860),  is  headed  with  the 
words  of  that  celebrated  message  in  the  First 
Book  of  Dickens's  "A  Tale  of  Two  Cities,"  — 
"Recalled  to  Life." 


VIII 

CIVIL  WAR 

"  Black  faces  in  the  camp 
Where  moved  those  peerless  brows  and  eyes  of  old." 

BROWNING'S  Luria. 

FROM  the  time  of  my  Kansas  visit  I  never 
had  doubted  that  a  farther  conflict  of  some  sort 
was  impending.  The  absolute  and  increasing 
difference  between  the  two  sections  of  the  na 
tion  had  been  most  deeply  impressed  upon  me 
by  my  first  and  only  visit  to  a  slave-mart.  On 
one  of  my  trips  to  St.  Louis  I  had  sought  John 
Lynch's  slave-dealing  establishment,  following 
an  advertisement  in  a  newspaper,  and  had 
found  a  yard  full  of  men  and  women  strolling 
listlessly  about  and  waiting  to  be  sold.  The 
proprietor,  looking  like  a  slovenly  horse-dealer, 
readily  explained  to  me  their  condition  and 
value.  Presently  a  planter  came  in,  having 
been  sent  on  an  errand  to  buy  a  little  girl  to 
wait  on  his  wife ;  stating  this  as  easily  and  nat 
urally  as  if  he  had  been  sent  for  a  skein  of 
yarn.  Mr.  Lynch  called  in  three  sisters,  the 
oldest  perhaps  eleven  or  twelve,  —  nice  little 


236  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

mulatto  girls  in  neat  pink  calico  frocks  suggest 
ing  a  careful  mother.  Some  question  being 
asked,  Mr.  Lynch  responded  cheerfully,  "  Strip 
her  and  examine  for  yourself.  I  never  have 
any  secrets  from  my  customers."  This  cere 
mony  being  waived,  the  eldest  was  chosen; 
and  the  planter,  patting  her  on  the  head  kindly 
enough,  asked,  "  Don't  you  want  to  go  with 
me  ? "  when  the  child,  bursting  into  a  flood  of 
tears,  said,  "  I  want  to  stay  with  my  mother." 
Mr.  Lynch's  face  ceased  to  be  good-natured 
when  he  ordered  the  children  to  go  out,  but 
the  bargain  was  finally  completed.  It  was  an 
epitome  of  slavery  ;  the  perfectly  matter-of-fact 
character  of  the  transaction,  and  the  circum 
stance  that  those  before  me  did  not  seem 
exceptionally  cruel  men,  made  the  whole  thing 
more  terrible.  I  was  beholding  a  case,  not 
of  special  outrage,  but  of  every-day  business, 
which  was  worse.  If  these  were  the  common 
places  of  the  institution,  what  must  its  excep 
tional  tragedies  be  ? 

With  such  an  experience  in  my  mind,  and 
the  fact  everywhere  visible  in  Kansas  of  the 
armed  antagonism  of  the  Free  State  and  pro- 
slavery  parties,  I  readily  shared  the  feeling  — 
then  more  widely  spread  than  we  can  now 
easily  recall  —  of  the  possible  necessity  of  ac 
cepting  the  disunion  forced  upon  us  by  the 


CIVIL   WAR  237 

apparently  triumphant  career  of  the  slave 
power.  It  was  a  period  when  Banks  had  said, 
in  a  speech  in  Maine,  that  it  might  be  needful, 
in  a  certain  contingency,  "  to  let  the  Union 
slide ; "  and  when  Whittier  had  written  in  the 
original  form  of  his  poem  on  Texas,  — 

«  Make  our  Union-bond  a  chain, 
We  will  snap  its  links  in  twain, 
We  will  stand  erect  again  I " 

These  men  were  not  Garrisonians  or  theoreti 
cal  disunionists,  but  the  pressure  of  events 
seemed,  for  the  moment,  to  be  driving  us  all  in 
their  direction. 

I  find  that  at  the  jubilant  twenty-fifth  anni 
versary  of  the  founding  of  the  Massachusetts 
Anti-Slavery  Society  (January  2,  1857)  I  said, 
in  Faneuil  Hall,  "  To-morrow  may  call  us  to 
some  work  so  stern  that  the  joys  of  this  even 
ing  will  seem  years  away.  To-morrow  may 
make  this  evening  only  the  revelry  by  night 
before  Waterloo."  Under  this  conviction  I 
took  an  active  part  with  the  late  Francis  W. 
Bird  and  a  few  other  Republicans  and  some 
Garrisonian  Abolitionists  in  calling  a  state  dis 
union  convention  at  Worcester  on  January  15, 
1857;  but  the  Republican  party  was  by  no 
means  ready  for  a  movement  so  extreme,  though 
some  of  its  leaders  admitted  frankly  that  it  was 
well  for  the  North  to  suggest  that  freedom  was 


238  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

more  valuable  than  even  the  Union.  The  Kan 
sas  question,  it  must  be  remembered,  was  yet 
impending,  and  it  was  obviously  possible  that  it 
might  result  in  another  Slave  State,  leading  the 
way  to  others  still.  Moreover,  passports  were 
now  for  the  first  time  refused  to  free  colored 
men,  under  the  Taney  decision,  on  the  ground 
of  their  not  being  citizens  of  the  nation.  It 
was  also  understood  that,  under  this  decision, 
slaveholders  would  be  protected  by  the  Su 
preme  Court  in  carrying  their  slaves  with  them 
into  Free  States  and  holding  them  there.  Such 
things  accounted  for  the  temporary  develop 
ment  of  a  Northern  disunion  feeling  about  that 
time ;  and  a  national  convention  at  Cleveland, 
following  the  state  convention,  had  been  fully 
planned  by  a  committee  of  which  I  was  chair 
man, —  the  call  for  this  receiving  the  names 
of  more  than  six  thousand  signers,  representing 
all  of  the  Free  States,  —  when  there  came  the 
formidable  financial  panic  which  made  the  year 
1857  so  memorable.  As  this  calamity  had  be 
gun  in  Ohio,  and  was  felt  most  severely  there, 
it  was  decided  that  the  convention  should  be 
postponed,  and  this,  as  it  proved,  forever. 

In  the  following  year  Senator  Seward  made 
his  great  speech  in  which  he  accepted  fully  the 
attitude,  which  was  the  basis  of  our  position, 
that  the  whole  anti-slavery  contest  was  a  thing 


CIVIL  WAR  239 

inevitable,  —  "  an  irrepressible  conflict  between 
opposing  and  enduring  forces,"  —  and  that  the 
United  States  must  and  would  "sooner  or  later 
become  entirely  a  slave-holding  nation  or  en 
tirely  a  free  labor  nation."  Either,  Seward 
said,  the  plantations  of  the  South  must  ulti 
mately  be  tilled  by  free  men,  or  the  farms  of 
Massachusetts  and  New  York  must  be  surren 
dered  to  the  rearing  of  slaves  ;  there  could 
be  no  middle  ground.  Lincoln  had  said,  in  the 
controversy  with  Douglas,  "A  house  divided 
against  itself  cannot  stand."  In  view  of  these 
suggestions,  some  of  us  were  for  accepting  the 
situation,  after  our  fashion,  and  found  ourselves 
imitating  that  first  mate  of  a  vessel,  who,  see 
ing  her  to  be  in  danger,  and  being  bidden  by 
his  captain  to  go  forward  and  attend  to  his 
own  part  of  the  ship,  came  aft  again  presently, 

touched  his  cap,  and  said,  "  Captain ,  my 

part  of  the  ship  is  at  anchor."  It  was  doubt 
less  well  that  the  march  of  events  proved  too 
strong  for  us,  and  that  the  union  feeling  itself 
was  finally  aroused  to  do  a  work  which  the  anti- 
slavery  purpose  alone  could  not  have  accom 
plished  ;  yet  we  acted  at  the  time  according  to 
our  light,  and  we  know  from  the  testimony  of 
Lincoln  himself  that  it  was  the  New  England 
Abolitionists  from  whom  he  learned  that  love 
of  liberty  which  at  last  made  him  turn  the  scale. 


240  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

Then  came  the  John  Brown  affair,  as  de 
scribed  in  a  previous  chapter;  and  there  fol 
lowed  after  this,  in  the  winter  of  1860,  a  curi 
ous  outbreak  in  New  England  itself  of  the  old 
prescriptive  feeling.  There  ensued  an  interval 
when  the  Boston  Abolitionists  were  again  called 
upon  to  combine,  in  order  to  prevent  public 
meetings  from  being  broken  up  and  the  house 
of  Wendell  Phillips  from  being  mobbed.  Phil 
lips  was  speaking  at  that  time  on  Sundays  at 
the  Boston  Music  Hall,  and  it  was  necessary 
to  protect  the  assembly  by  getting  men  to  act 
together,  under  orders,  and  guard  the  various 
approaches  to  the  hall.  I  was  placed  at  the 
head  of  a  company  formed  for  this  purpose, 
and  it  was  strange  to  find  how  little  advance 
had  been  made  beyond  the  old  perplexity  in 
organizing  reformers.  There  was  more  will 
ingness  to  arm  than  formerly,  but  that  was 
all.  Mr.  George  W.  Smalley  has  lately  given 
a  graphic  description  of  that  period,  and  has 
described  those  lovers  of  freedom  as  being 
"well  organized;"  but  he  was  not  wholly  in 
a  position  to  judge,  because  he  and  another 
young  man  —  the  John  W.  LeBarnes  already 
mentioned  in  connection  with  the  abortive 
Virginia  foray  —  had  chivalrously  constituted 
themselves  the  body-guard  of  Wendell  Phillips, 
and  were  at  his  side  day  and  night,  thus  being 


CIVIL  WAR  241 

in  a  manner  on  special  service.  Their  part  of 
the  work  being  so  well  done,  they  may  naturally 
have  supposed  the  rest  to  be  in  an  equally  satis 
factory  condition  ;  but  as  a  matter  of  fact  the 
so-called  organization  was  only  the  flimsiest 
shell.  It  consisted,  while  nominally  under  my 
command,  of  some  forty  men,  half  of  these 
being  Germans,  half  Americans  :  the  Germans 
were  inconveniently  full  of  fight,  and  the  Amer 
icans  hardly  awakened  to  the  possibility  of  it. 
After  going  through  the  form  of  posting  my 
men  at  the  numerous  doors  of  the  Music  Hall, 
each  as  it  were  on  picket  duty,  I  almost  always 
found,  on  visiting  them  half  an  hour  later,  that 
the  Americans  had  taken  comfortable  seats  in 
side  and  were  applauding  the  speakers,  as  if 
that  were  their  main  duty  ;  while  the  Germans 
had  perhaps  got  into  some  high  discussion  in 
the  corridors,  ending  in  an  exhibition  of  pistols 
and  in  being  carried  off  by  the  police.  Ex 
postulating  once  with  one  of  my  nominal  lieu 
tenants,  an  American,  I  referred  to  a  certain 
order  as  having  been  disregarded.  "  Oh,"  he 
said  calmly,  "  that  was  an  order,  was  it  ?  I 
had  viewed  it  in  the  light  of  a  suggestion."  In 
asmuch  as  one  or  two  public  meetings  had 
been  broken  up  by  gentlemen  of  property  and 
standing,  who  at  least  obeyed  the  directions  of 
the  bully  who  led  them,  this  attitude  of  the 


242  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

defenders  seemed  discouraging.  It  was  too 
much  like  that  croquet  party  in  "  Alice's  Ad 
ventures  in  Wonderland,"  where  the  game  was 
disturbed  by  the  fact  that  the  attendants  who 
were  expected  to  stoop  down  and  officiate  as 
wickets  kept  constantly  straightening  them 
selves  up  and  walking  away. 

I  spent  one  night  on  guard  at  Phillips' s 
house  with  his  young  henchmen,  and  was 
struck,  then  as  before,  with  his  high-bred  bear 
ing.  Always  aristocratic  in  aspect,  he  was 
never  more  so  than  when  walking  through  the 
streets  of  his  own  Boston  with  a  howling  mob 
about  him.  It  was  hard  to  make  him  adopt 
ordinary  precautions  ;  he  did  not  care  to  have 
the  police  protect  his  house,  and  he  would  have 
gone  to  the  scaffold  if  necessary,  I  firmly  be 
lieve,  like  the  typical  French  marquis  in  the 
Reign  of  Terror,  who  took  a  pinch  of  snuff 
from  his  snuff-box  while  looking  on  the  crowd. 
This  was  never  more  conspicuously  the  case 
than  at  the  annual  convention  of  the  Massachu 
setts  Anti-Slavery  Society,  just  after  a  meeting 
on  the  anniversary  of  John  Brown's  execution 
had  been  broken  up  by  a  mob  of  very  much 
the  same  social  grade  with  that  which  had  for 
merly  mobbed  Garrison.  I  did  not  happen  to 
be  present  at  the  John  Brown  gathering,  being 
in  Worcester ;  but  at  the  larger  convention 


CIVIL  WAR  243 

(January  24,  1861),  held  at  Tremont  Temple,  I 
was  again  in  service  with  the  same  body  of  fol 
lowers  already  described  to  defend  the  meet 
ing  and  the  speakers,  if  needful.  The  body  of 
the  hall  was  solidly  filled  with  grave  Abolition 
ists  and  knitting  women,  but  round  the  doors 
and  galleries  there  was  a  noisy  crowd  of  young 
fellows,  mostly  well  dressed  and  many  of  them 
well  educated,  who  contrived,  by  shouting  and  by 
singing  uproarious  songs,  to  drown  the  voices 
of  the  speakers,  and  to  compel  Phillips  himself 
to  edge  in  his  sentences  when  the  singers  were 
out  of  breath.  The  favorite  burden  was,  — 

"Tell  John  Andrew, 
Tell  John  Andrew, 
Tell  John  Andrew 
John  Brown  's  dead ;  " 

with  more  ribald  verses  following.  It  was  not 
many  months  before  those  who  took  part  in 
the  meeting  and  those  who  tried  to  suppress 
it  were  marching  southward  in  uniform,  elbow 
to  elbow,  singing  a  very  different  John  Brown 
song. 

There  was  one  moment  during  this  session 
when  it  seemed  as  if  an  actual  hand-to-hand 
conflict  had  come.  There  was  a  sudden  move 
ment  at  the  doors,  and  a  body  of  men  came 
pressing  toward  the  platform,  along  each  of  the 
aisles ;  and  I  know  that  I,  for  one,  had  my 


244  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

hand  on  my  revolver,  when  the  invaders  proved 
to  be  Mayor  Wightman  with  aldermen  and 
police,  on  an  apparently  peaceful  mission.  He 
turned  and  announced,  however,  that  he  came 
to  dissolve  the  meeting  by  request  of  the  trus 
tees  of  the  building.  This  being  promptly  de 
nied  by  the  trustees,  who  were  present,  and 
who  compelled  him  to  read  their  letter,  it  was 
shown  that  he  had  been  requested  to  come 
and  protect  the  assembly  instead,  —  and  this, 
with  curious  changeableness,  he  proceeded  to 
attempt ;  at  least  securing  partial  order,  and 
stopping  the  mob  from  throwing  down  cush 
ions  and  furniture  from  the  galleries,  which  it 
had  already  begun  to  do.  The  speakers  at  this 
session  were  Phillips,  Emerson,  Clarke,  and  my 
self,  and  it  was  on  this  occasion  that  Phillips 
uttered  a  remark  which  became  historic.  Turn 
ing  from  the  mob,  which  made  him  inaudible, 
he  addressed  himself  wholly  to  the  reporters, 
and  said :  "  When  I  speak  to  these  pencils,  I 
speak  to  a  million  of  men.  .  .  .  My  voice  is 
beaten  by  theirs  [those  of  the  mob],  but  they 
cannot  beat  types.  All  honor  to  Faust,  for  he 
made  mobs  impossible."  At  last  the  mayor 
promised  the  chairman,  Edmund  Quincy,  to 
protect  the  evening  session  with  fifty  police 
men  ;  but  instead  of  this  he  finally  prohibited 
it,  and  when  I  came,  expecting  to  attend  it,  I 


CIVIL  WAR  245 

found  the  doors  closed  by  police,  while  numer 
ous  assailants,  under  their  leader,  Jonas  H. 
French,  were  in  possession  of  the  outer  halls. 
A  portion  of  these,  bent  on  mischief,  soon  set 
off  in  search  of  it  among  the  quarters  of  the 
negroes  near  Charles  Street,  and  I  followed, 
wishing  to  stand  by  my  friends  in  that  way,  if 
it  could  be  done  in  no  other.  Lewis  Hayden 
afterwards  said  that  I  should  not  have  done 
this,  for  the  negroes  were  armed,  and  would 
have  shot  from  their  houses  if  molested.  But 
there  was  only  shouting  and  groaning  on  the 
part  of  the  mob,  with  an  occasional  breaking  of 
windows ;  the  party  attacked  kept  indoors,  and 
I  went  home  undisturbed. 

All  these  things  looked  like  a  coming  storm. 
It  was  observable  that  men  were  beginning  to 
use  firearms  more,  about  that  time,  even  in 
New  England.  I  find  that  in  those  days  I  read 
military  books ;  took  notes  on  fortifications, 
strategy,  and  the  principles  of  attack  and  de 
fense.  Yet  all  these  preliminary  events  were 
detached  and  disconnected  ;  their  disturbances 
were  only  like  the  little  local  whirlwinds  that 
sometimes  precede  a  tornado.  There  was  a 
lull ;  and  then,  on  the  day  when  Fort  Sumter 
was  fired  upon,  the  storm  burst  and  the  whole 
community  awaked  One  of  the  first  things 
thought  of  by  all  was  the  unprotected  condition 


246  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

of  Washington.  It  seemed  to  me  that  there 
was  one  simple  measure  to  be  undertaken  for 
its  defense,  in  case  of  danger ;  so  I  went,  on 
the  very  day  when  the  news  reached  us,  to 
several  leading  men  in  Worcester,  who  gave 
me  a  letter  of  recommendation  to  Governor  An 
drew,  that  I  might  ask  him  to  appropriate  a 
sum  from  his  contingent  fund,  and  to  let  me 
again  summon  Montgomery  and  his  men  from 
Kansas ;  going  with  them  into  the  mountains 
of  Virginia,  there  to  kindle  a  back  fire  of  alarm 
and  draw  any  rebel  force  away  from  Washing 
ton.  Governor  Andrew  approved  the  project, 
but  had  no  contingent  fund  ;  Dr.  S.  G.  Howe 
entered  warmly  into  it,  and  took  me  on  State 
Street  to  raise  money,  as  did  Mr.  S.  G.  Ward, 
afterwards,  on  Wall  Street  in  New  York.  One 
or  two  thousand  dollars  were  pledged,  and  I 
went  to  Harrisburg  to  see  Governor  Curtin,  of 
Pennsylvania.  He  said  that  he  would  give  a 
thousand  dollars  if  John  Brown  could  be  brought 
back  to  life,  and  had  my  plan  under  considera 
tion,  when  the  rapid  progress  of  events  strength 
ened  the  government  enough  to  make  any  such 
irregular  proceeding  quite  undesirable. 

Coming  back  to  Worcester,  I  was  offered 
the  majorship  of  the  Fourth  Battalion  of  Infan 
try,  then  hastily  called  into  the  United  States 
service ;  and  when  I  declined  this,  the  position 


CIVIL  WAR  247 

was  offered  to  my  old  schoolmate,  Charles 
Devens,  who,  though  almost  wholly  ignorant 
of  military  drill,  accepted  it  on  condition  that 
our  best  local  drill-master,  Captain  Goodhue, 
should  go  with  him  as  adjutant.  My  reasons 
for  not  accepting  were  various :  first,  that  I 
doubted  my  competency ;  secondly,  that  my 
wife,  always  an  invalid,  was  just  at  that  time 
especially  dependent  on  me  ;  and  lastly,  that 
it  was  then  wholly  uncertain  whether  the  gov 
ernment  would  take  the  anti-slavery  attitude, 
without  which  a  military  commission  would 
have  been  for  me  intolerable,  since  I  might 
have  been  ordered  to  deliver  up  fugitive  slaves 
to  their  masters,  —  as  had  already  happened  to 
several  officers.  I  have  often  thought  what  a 
difference  it  might  have  made  in  both  Devens's 
life  and  mine  if  I  had  accepted  this  early  oppor 
tunity.  I  might  have  come  out  a  major-general, 
as  he  did ;  but  I  dare  say  that  the  government 
gained  by  the  exchange  a  better  soldier  than  it 
lost.  Meanwhile  I  went  on  drilling  and  taking 
fencing  lessons  ;  and  a  few  months  later,  when 
the  anti-slavery  position  of  the  government  be 
came  clearer,  I  obtained  authority  from  Governor 
Andrew  to  raise  a  regiment,  and  had  about  half 
the  necessary  ten  companies  provided  for,  in 
different  parts  of  the  State,  when  one  of  the 
sudden  stoppages  of  recruiting  occurred,  and 


248  CHEERFUL   YESTERDAYS 

the  whole  affair  proved  abortive.  It  was  under 
stood  with  Governor  Andrew  that  while  I  was 
to  raise  the  regiment,  I  was  to  be  only  second 
in  command,  the  colonel  being  Captain  Rufus 
Saxton,  U.  S.  A.,  an  officer  with  whom,  by  a 
curious  coincidence,  I  was  later  to  have  the 
most  intimate  connection.  I  had  been  engaged 
upon  this  organization  between  October,  1861, 
and  February,  1862,  and  the  renewed  disap 
pointment  was  very  hard  to  bear.  In  several 
of  my  printed  essays,  especially  at  the  end  of 
that  called  "A  Letter  to  a  Young  Contributor," 
I  find  traces  of  this  keen  regret;  and  when 
finally  a  new  nine  months'  regiment,  the  Fifty- 
First  Massachusetts,  was  called  out,  in  August, 
my  wife  being  in  somewhat  better  health,  I 
could  keep  out  of  the  affair  no  longer,  but 
opened  a  recruiting  office  in  Worcester.  Being 
already  well  known  among  the  young  men 
there,  through  the  athletic  clubs  and  drill  clubs, 
I  had  little  difficulty  in  getting  much  more  than 
the  required  number,  giving  a  strong  nucleus 
for  a  second  company,  which  was  transferred 
to  the  command  of  my  friend  John  S.  Baldwin, 
now  of  the  "  Worcester  Spy." 

It  is  almost  impossible  here  to  reproduce  the 
emotions  of  that  period  of  early  war  enlist 
ments.  As  I  ventured  to  say  in  the  preface  to 
"  Harvard  Memorial  Biographies,"  "To  call  it  a 


CIVIL  WAR  249 

sense  of  novelty  was  nothing  ;  it  was  as  if  one 
had  learned  to  swim  in  air,  and  were  striking  out 
for  some  new  planet."  All  the  methods,  stand 
ards,  habits,  and  aims  of  ordinary  life  were  re 
versed,  and  the  intrinsic  and  traditional  charm 
of  the  soldier's  life  was  mingled  in  my  own  case 
with  the  firm  faith  that  the  death-knell  of  sla 
very  itself  was  being  sounded.  Meanwhile,  the 
arts  of  drill  and  the  discipline  were  to  be  learned 
in  practice,  and  the  former  proved  incompara 
bly  easier  than  had  been  expected  ;  it  turned 
out  that  there  was  no  department  of  science  in 
which  the  elements  were  so  readily  acquired. 
As  to  the  exercise  of  authority,  however,  it 
was  different.  It  was  no  longer  possible  to 
view  a  command  only  "  in  the  light  of  a  sug 
gestion."  Moreover,  we  were  dealing  with  a 
democratic  society,  on  which  a  new  temporary 
aristocracy  of  military  rank  was  to  be  built, 
superseding  all  previous  distinction  ;  and  the 
task  was  not  light.  Fortunately,  I  was  older 
than  many  raw  officers,  —  being  thirty-eight, 
—  and  had  some  very  young  men  in  my  com 
pany,  who  had  been  confided  to  me  by  their 
parents  as  to  a  father.  Within  my  own  imme 
diate  command  I  had  hardly  a  trace  of  trouble ; 
nor  did  I  find  the  least  difficulty  in  deferring 
to  the  general  in  command  of  the  camp,  who 
was  by  occupation  a  working  mechanic,  and 


250  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

uneducated  except  in  war.  But  the  trouble 
was  that  he  was  on  duty  only  by  day,  returning 
to  his  home  every  night,  during  which  period 
the  regiment  became  a  heterogeneous  mass  of 
men,  as  yet  little  trained  either  to  command  or 
to  obey.  Discipline  was  not  easy,  especially 
in  the  case  of  some  newly  arrived  company, 
perhaps  in  a  high  state  of  whiskey;  and  we 
had  to  learn  to  bear  and  forbear.  I  know  that 
in  the  effort* to  enforce  order  I  fell  rapidly  out 
of  popularity,  usually  for  my  merits  ;  and  then 
inexplicably  fell  into  it  again,  sometimes  through 
acts  of  negligence.  But  nobody  denied  that  my 
own  company  was  at  least  in  good  condition, 
and  from  the  moment  we  had  a  permanent 
colonel,  and  an  admirable  one,  —  afterwards 
General  A.  B.  R.  Sprague,  since  mayor  of 
Worcester, — all  went  as  it  should.  I  was  only 
a  month  with  the  regiment,  but  the  experience 
was  simply  invaluable.  Every  man  is  placed 
at  the  greatest  disadvantage  in  a  higher  mili 
tary  command,  unless  he  has  previously  sown 
his  wild  oats,  as  it  were,  in  a  lower ;  making  his 
mistakes,  suffering  for  them,  and  learning  how 
to  approach  his  duty  rightly. 

There  came  into  vogue  about  that  time  a 
"  nonsense  verse,"  so  called,  bearing  upon  my 
humble  self,  and  vivacious  enough  to  be  widely 
quoted  in  the  newspapers.  It  was  composed,  I 


CIVIL  WAR  251 

believe,  by  Mrs.  Sivret,  of  Boston,  and  ran  as 
follows  :  — 

"  There  was  a  young  curate  of  Worcester 
Who  could  have  a  command  if  he  'd  choose  ter, 
But  he  said  each  recruit 
Must  be  blacker  than  soot, 
Or  eke  he  'd  go  preach  where  he  used  ter." 

As  a  matter  of  fact  it  came  no  nearer  the  truth 
than  the  famous  definition  of  a  crab  by  Cu- 
vier's  pupil,  since  I  had  never  been  a  curate, 
had  already  left  the  pulpit  for  literature  before 
the  war,  and  was  so  far  from  stipulating  for  a 
colored  regiment  that  I  had  just  been  commis 
sioned  in  a  white  one ;  nevertheless  the  hit  was 
palpable,  and  deserved  its  popularity.  I  had 
formed  even  in  a  short  time  a  strong  attach 
ment  to  my  own  company,  regiment,  and  regi 
mental  commander, —  and  one  day,  when  the 
governor  of  Rhode  Island  had  made  his  first 
abortive  suggestion  of  a  black  regiment,  I  had 
notified  my  young  lieutenants,  John  Goodell 
and  Luther  Bigelow,  that  such  an  enterprise 
would  be  the  only  thing  likely  to  take  me  from 
them.  A  few  days  after,  as  we  sat  at  dinner 
in  the  Worcester  barracks,  I  opened  a  letter 
from  Brigadier-General  Rufus  Saxton,  military 
commander  of  the  Department  of  the  South, 
saying  that  he  had  at  last  received  authority  to 
recruit  a  regiment  of  freed  slaves,  and  wished 
me  to  be  its  colonel.  It  was  an  offer  that  took 


252  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

my  breath  away,  and  fulfilled  the  dream  of  a 
lifetime.  This  was  long  before  Massachusetts 
took  steps  in  the  same  direction ;  Kansas  was, 
however,  enlisting  a  regiment  of  free  negroes, 
and  three  similar  regiments,  formed  by  the 
Confederates  in  Louisiana,  had  been  turned 
into  Union  troops  by  General  Butler ;  but  the 
first  regiment  of  emancipated  slaves  as  such 
had  yet  to  be  mustered  in.  There  remained 
but  one  doubt :  would  it  really  be  a  regiment, 
or  a  mere  plantation  guard  in  uniform  ?  This 
doubt  could  be  determined  only  on  the  spot ; 
so  I  got  a  furlough,  went  to  South  Carolina 
to  inspect  the  situation,  and  saw  promptly  that 
General  Saxton  was  in  earnest,  and  that  I  could 
safely  leave  all  and  follow  him. 

The  whole  condition  of  affairs  at  what  was  to 
be  for  me  the  seat  of  war  was  then  most  pecu 
liar.  General  Saxton,  who  had  been  an  Aboli 
tionist  even  at  West  Point,  was  discharging  the 
semi-civil  function  of  military  governor.  Freed 
slaves  by  thousands,  men,  women,  and  children, 
had  been  collected  on  the  Sea  Islands  of  South 
Carolina,  and  were  being  rationed,  employed, 
and  taught  under  the  direction  of  missionaries, 
agents,  and  teachers  from  the  North  ;  these 
being  sometimes  admirable,  but  sometimes  in 
competent,  tyrannical,  or  fanatical.  Between 
these  and  the  troops  there  existed  a  constant 


CIVIL   WAR  253 

jealousy,  and  General  Saxton,  in  a  position 
requiring  superhuman  patience  and  tact,  was 
obliged  to  mediate  between  the  two  parties. 
Major- General  Hunter,  at  the  head  of  the 
department,  had  been  the  very  first  to  arm 
the  blacks  (in  May,  1862),  and  had  adhered, 
after  his  fashion,  to  that  policy,  — my  regiment 
being  a  revival  of  that  early  experiment ;  but 
some  of  his  staff  were  bitterly  opposed  to  any 
such  enlistment,  and  thwarted  him  as  soon  as 
his  back  was  turned,  —  a  thing  not  difficult,  as 
he  was  indolent,  forgetful,  changeable,  and  eas 
ily  accessible  to  flattery.  While,  therefore,  my 
regiment  had  a  nominal  support,  it  was  con 
stantly  hindered :  there  were  difficulties  as  to 
uniforms,  medicines,  and  guns ;  it  was  often 
necessary  to  struggle  to  obtain  more  than  a 
Cinderella's  portion.  This  had  the  farther  dis 
advantage  that  it  tempted  us,  perhaps,  to  be 
sometimes  needlessly  suspicious ;  nor  was  our 
beloved  General  Saxton  always  free  from  over- 
sensitiveness.  Incidentally,  also,  we  found  that 
in  all  connection  with  the  regular  army  we 
must  come  in  for  our  share  of  its  internal 
feuds ;  and  we  discovered  that  old  West  Point 
grudges  were  sometimes  being  wreaked  on  our 
unoffending  heads,  General  Saxton's  enemies 
occasionally  striking  at  him  through  us.  He, 
on  the  other  hand,  distrusted  the  intentions  of 


254  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

certain  officers  in  regard  to  us,  feared  lest  we 
should  be  sacrificed  under  any  orders  but  his, 
and  sometimes  held  us  back  from  service  when 
he  might  better  have  risked  us.  All  these 
drawbacks  were  trifles,  however,  beside  the  plea 
sure  of  being  fairly  in  military  harness,  and  of 
bringing  into  the  public  service  the  warlike  ma 
terial  which  most  persons  regarded  with  doubt. 
There  was  also  a  happiness  in  dealing  with 
an  eminently  trustful  and  affectionate  race, 
and  seeing  the  tonic  effect  of  camp  discipline 
upon  the  blacks.  In  this  respect  there  was 
an  obvious  difference  between  them  and  the 
whites.  Few  white  soldiers  enjoyed  serving 
in  the  ranks,  for  itself ;  they  accepted  it  for 
the  sake  of  their  country,  or  because  others  did, 
or  from  the  hope  of  promotion,  but  there  was 
nevertheless  a  secret  feeling  in  most  minds  that 
it  was  a  step  down  ;  no  person  of  democratic 
rearing  really  enjoys  being  under  the  orders  of 
those  who  have  hitherto  been  his  equals.  The 
negroes,  on  the  other  hand,  who  had  been  or 
dered  about  all  their  lives,  felt  it  a  step  upward 
to  be  in  uniform,  to  have  rights  as  well  as 
duties ;  their  ready  imitativeness  and  love  of 
rhythm  made  the  drill  and  manual  exercises 
easy  for  them ;  and  they  rejoiced  in  the  dignity 
of  guard  and  outpost  duty,  which  they  did  to 
perfection.  It  is,  however,  a  great  mistake  to 


CIVIL  WAR  255 

suppose  that  slavery,  as  such,  was  altogether 
a  good  preparation  for  military  life ;  and  the 
officers  who  copied  the  methods  of  plantation 
overseers  proved  failures.  It  was  necessary  to 
keep  constantly  before  the  men  that  they  were 
much  more  than  slaves,  to  appeal  to  their  pride 
as  soldiers,  to  win  their  affection  also,  and  then 
to  exercise  absolute  justice ;  and  the  officer 
who  did  all  this  could  wind  them  round  his 
finger.  Through  such  influences  it  was  needful 
to  teach  them,  among  other  things,  to  obey  the 
non-commissioned  officers  of  their  own  color, 
and  this  they  at  first  found  hard.  "  I  don't 
want  him  to  play  de  white  man  ober  me,"  was 
a  frequent  remark  in  such  cases,  and  the  ob 
jection  had  to  be  patiently  met  by  explaining 
that  color  had  nothing  to  do  with  it ;  that  they 
obeyed  their  sergeants  only  as  those  sergeants 
obeyed  their  captains,  or  the  captains  yielded 
to  me,  or  I  took  my  orders  from  the  general. 
In  a  little  while  this  became  perfectly  clear  to 
their  minds,  and  they  were  proud,  not  offended, 
when  sent  on  some  expedition  under  a  sergeant 
of  their  own  race.  This  was  made  easier  by 
the  fact  that  we  had  among  the  non-commis 
sioned  officers  much  admirable  material ;  and 
the  color-sergeant,  Prince  Rivers,  was  not  only 
a  man  of  distinguished  appearance,  but  superior 
in  the  power  of  command  to  half  of  the  white 


256  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

officers  in  the  regiment.  He  had  previously 
been  the  most  conspicuous  private  coachman  in 
Charleston;  there  had  been  a  reward  of  one 
thousand  dollars  offered  for  him  when  he  es 
caped  from  slavery ;  and  once,  when  visiting 
New  York  as  General  Hunter's  orderly,  he  had 
been  mobbed  in  the  street  for  wearing  the 
United  States  uniform,  and  had  defended  him 
self  successfully  against  half  a  dozen  men,  tak 
ing  his  position  in  a  doorway.  After  the  war 
he  was  appointed  a  justice  of  the  peace  in 
South  Carolina. 

It  was  a  fortunate  thing  for  both  General 
Saxton  and  myself  that  each  of  us  had  been 
satisfied  in  advance  of  the  essential  courage  of 
the  blacks.  In  my  case  this  was  the  result  of 
a  little  experience,  previously  related,  at  the 
Burns  riot,  —  when  a  negro  stepped  into  the 
Court-House  door  before  me  ;  in  Saxton's  case 
it  came  from  his  participation  in  the  war  be 
tween  the  United  States  troops  and  the  Florida 
Seminoles,  when  he  had  observed,  having  both 
blacks  and  Indians  to  fight  against,  that  the 
negroes  would  often  stand  fire  when  the  In 
dians  would  run  away.  We  were  thus  saved 
from  all  solicitude  such  as  beset  for  a  time  the 
mind  of  that  young  hero,  Colonel  Robert  Shaw, 
when  he  took  the  field,  six  months  later,  with 
his  Massachusetts  colored  regiment.  When  I 


CIVIL  WAR  257 

rode  over  to  his  camp  to  welcome  him,  on  his 
first  arrival,  he  said  that  while  I  had  shown 
that  negro  troops  were  effective  in  bush-fight 
ing,  it  had  yet  to  be  determined  how  they 
would  fight  in  line  of  battle ;  and  I  expressing 
no  doubt  on  this  point,  he  suggested  that  it 
would  always  be  possible  to  put  another  line 
of  soldiers  behind  a  black  regiment,  so  as  to 
present  equal  danger  in  either  direction.  I  was 
amazed,  for  I  never  should  have  dreamed  of 
being  tempted  to  such  a  step ;  and  he  learned 
a  lesson  of  more  confidence  when  his  men  fol 
lowed  him  upon  the  parapets  of  Fort  Wagner, 
after  a  white  regiment,  in  a  previous  assault, 
had  lain  down  and  refused  to  face  the  terrific 
fire  from  that  almost  impregnable  fort. 

The  colored  soldiers  caused  me,  and  I  think 
caused  their  officers  generally,  no  disappoint 
ment  whatever  in  respect  to  courage  or  con 
duct.  As  General  Saxton  wrote  to  a  Northern 
committee  of  inquiry  as  to  the  freed  blacks, 
they  were  "  intensely  human."  They  were  cer 
tainly  more  docile  than  white  soldiers,  more 
affectionate,  and  more  impulsive ;  they  prob 
ably  varied  more  under  different  officers  and 
were  less  individually  self-reliant,  but  were,  on 
the  other  hand,  under  good  guidance,  more 
eager  and  impetuous  than  whites.  They  had 
also,  in  the  case  of  my  regiment,  a  valuable 


258  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

knowledge  of  the  country.  They  were  very 
gregarious,  and  liked  to  march  together  even 
on  a  fatigue  party,  singing  as  they  marched, 
whereas  white  soldiers  on  such  service  were 
commonly  to  be  seen  tramping  along  singly. 
In  regard  to  courage,  there  was  not,  I  suspect, 
much  difference.  Most  men  have  the  ordinary 
share  of  that  attribute ;  comparatively  few  are 
adventurous  ;  the  commander  of  any  regiment, 
white  or  black,  soon  knew  perfectly  well  just 
which  of  his  men  would  be  likely  to  volun 
teer  for  a  forlorn  hope.  Whether  the  better 
education  and  social  position  of  white  soldiers 
brought  them  more  under  the  influence  of  what 
Sir  Philip  Sidney  calls  "the  great  appetites 
of  honor  "  I  cannot  say ;  this  being,  it  will  be 
remembered,  Sidney's  reason  for  expecting 
more  courage  from  officers  than  from  enlisted 
men.  It  is  quite  certain,  on  the  other  hand, 
that  any  want  of  such  qualities  was  more  than 
balanced  by  the  fact  that  the  black  soldiers 
were  fighting  for  their  freedom  and  that  of 
their  families,  this  being  the  most  potent  of  all 
motives.  They  used  often  to  point  out,  in  con 
versation,  that  they  had  really  far  more  at  stake 
than  their  officers  had,  since,  if  the  Confeder 
ates  conquered,  or  even  if  it  were  a  drawn 
game,  the  negroes  would  all  relapse  into  sla 
very,  while  their  white  officers  would  go  back 


CIVIL  WAR  259 

to  the  North  and  live  much  as  before.  This 
solicitude  was  at  the  foundation  of  all  their 
enthusiasm ;  and  besides  this  there  was  their 
religious  feeling,  which  was  genuine  and  ardent, 
making  them  almost  fatalists  in  action,  and  giv 
ing  their  very  amusements  that  half-pious,  half- 
dramatic  character  which  filled  the  camp  every 
evening  with  those  stirring  songs  that  I  was 
perhaps  the  first  person  to  put  in  print,  and 
that  have  reached  so  many  hearts  when  sung 
by  the  Hampton  singers  and  others.  Riding 
towards  the  camp,  just  after  dark,  I  could  hear, 
when  within  a  half-mile  or  thereabouts,  the 
chorus  of  the  song  and  the  rhythmical  clap 
ping  of  hands ;  and  as  I  drew  nearer,  the  gleam 
of  the  camp-fires  on  the  dusky  faces  made  the 
whole  scene  look  more  like  an  encampment  of 
Bedouin  Arabs  than  like  anything  on  the  At 
lantic  shores. 

Before  I  had  joined  the  regiment,  detach 
ments  of  recruits  had  been  sent  down  the  coast 
of  South  Carolina  and  Georgia  to  destroy  salt 
works  and  bring  away  lumber ;  and  after  it 
had  grown  to  fuller  size,  there  occurred  several 
expeditions  into  the  interior,  under  my  com 
mand,  with  or  without  naval  escort.  We  went 
by  ourselves  up  the  St.  Mary's  River,  where 
the  men  were  for  the  first  time  actively  under 
fire,  and  acquitted  themselves  well.  The  river 


260  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

itself  was  regarded  by  naval  officers  as  the  most 
dangerous  in  that  region,  from  its  great  rapid 
ity,  its  sudden  turns,  and  the  opportunity  of 
attack  given  by  the  projecting  bluffs.  To  this 
day  I  have  never  understood  why  our  return 
was  not  cut  off  by  the  enemy's  felling  trees, 
which  could  have  been  done  easily  at  several 
points.  We  were  on  a  "  double-ender," — a 
steamer  built  for  a  ferry-boat,  and  afterwards 
protected  by  iron  plates.  There  was  often  no 
way  of  passing  a  sharp  curve,  in  descending, 
except  by  running  one  end  ashore  and  letting 
the  swift  current  swing  the  other  extremity 
round,  after  which  we  steamed  downwards,  the 
engine  being  reversed,  till  the  process  was  re 
peated.  At  these  points  the  enemy  always 
mustered  in  numbers,  and  sometimes  tried  to 
board  the  vessel,  besides  pouring  volleys  on  our 
men,  who  at  such  times  were  kept  below,  only 
shooting  from  the  windows.  The  captain  of 
my  boat  was  shot  and  killed,  and  I  shall  never 
forget  the  strange  sensation  when  I  drew  his 
lifeless  form  into  the  pilot-house  which  he  had 
rashly  quitted.  It  was  the  first  dead  body  I 
had  ever  handled  and  carried  in  my  arms,  and 
the  sudden  change  from  full  and  vigorous  life 
made  an  impression  that  no  later  experience 
surpassed. 

A  more  important  enterprise  was  the  recap- 


CIVIL  WAR  261 

ture  of  Jacksonville,  Florida,  which  had  been 
held  by  the  Union  troops,  and  then  deserted ; 
it  was  the  only  position  that  had  been  held  on 
the  mainland  in  the  Department  of  the  South, 
and  was  reoccupied  (March,  1863)  by  two  black 
regiments  under  my  command,  with  the  aid  of 
a  naval  gunboat  under  Captain  (afterwards  Ad 
miral)  Charles  Steedman,  U.  S.  N.  We  took  a 
large  supply  of  uniforms,  equipments,  and  extra 
rations,  with  orders,  when  once  Jacksonville 
was  secured,  to  hand  it  over  to  white  troops 
that  were  to  be  sent  under  Colonel  John  D. 
Rust ;  we  meanwhile  pressing  on  up  the  river 
to  Magnolia,  where  there  were  large  unoccu 
pied  buildings.  These  we  were  to  employ  as 
barracks,  and  as  a  basis  for  recruiting  stations 
yet  farther  inland.  It  was  of  this  expedition 
that  President  Lincoln  wrote  to  General  Hun 
ter  (April  i,  1863):  "I  am  glad  to  see  the 
account  of  your  colored  force  at  Jacksonville. 
I  see  the  enemy  are  driving  at  them  fiercely, 
as  is  to  be  expected.  It  is  important  to  the 
enemy  that  such  a  force  shall  not  take  shape 
and  grow  and  thrive  in  the  South,  and  in  pre 
cisely  the  same  proportion  it  is  important  to  us 
that  it  shall"  Our  part  was  faithfully  carried 
through,  and  no  disaster  occurred,  though  I 
had  to  defend  the  town  with  a  force  so  small 
that  every  resource  had  to  be  taxed  to  mislead 


262  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

the  enemy  into  thinking  us  far  more  numerous 
than  we  were;  this  so  far  succeeding  that 
General  Finnegan  —  afterwards  the  victor  at 
Olustee  —  quadrupled  our  real  numbers  in  his 
reports.  We  fortified  the  approaches  to  the 
town,  drove  back  the  enemy's  outposts,  and 
made  reconnoissances  into  the  interior;  and 
Colonel  Rust  with  his  white  troops  had  actually 
appeared,  when  General  Hunter,  with  one  of 
his  impulsive  changes  of  purpose,  altered  his 
whole  plan,  and  decided  to  abandon  Jackson 
ville. 

Once  again,  after  the  arrival  of  General  Gill- 
more,  we  were  sent  up  a  Southern  river.  A 
night  was  chosen  when  the  moon  set  late,  so 
that  we  could  reach  our  objective  point  a  little 
before  daybreak ;  thus  concealing  our  approach, 
and  giving  us  the  whole  day  to  work  in.  It 
was  needed  on  the  South  Edisto,  for  we  found 
across  a  bend  of  the  river  a  solid  structure  of 
palings  which  it  took  the  period  of  a  whole  tide 
to  remove,  and  which,  had  not  my  lieutenant- 
colonel  (C.  T.  Trowbridge)  been  an  engineer  offi 
cer,  could  not  have  been  displaced  at  all.  Even 
then  only  two  out  of  our  three  small  steamers 
could  ascend  the  shallow  stream  ;  and  of  these, 
one  soon  grounded  in  the  mud,  and  the  other 
was  disabled  by  a  shore  battery.  The  expe 
dition  —  which  should  never  have  been  sent 


CIVIL   WAR  263 

without  more  accurate  local  reconnoissances  — 
failed  of  its  nominal  end,  which  was  the  de 
struction  of  a  railway  bridge  utterly  beyond 
our  reach.  My  own  immediate  object,  which 
was  recruiting,  was  accomplished,  but  at  the 
final  cost  of  health  and  subsequent  military  op 
portunities.  As  I  stood  on  the  deck,  while  we 
were  in  action  with  a  shore  battery,  I  felt  a 
sudden  blow  in  the  side,  doubling  me  up  as 
if  a  Sullivan  or  a  Fitzsimmons  had  struck  me. 
My  clothes  were  not  torn,  but  very  soon  a 
large  purple  spot,  called  "  ecchymosis  "  by  the 
surgeons,  covered  the  whole  side,  and  for  weeks 
I  was  confined  to  bed.  I  had  supposed  it  to 
have  been  produced  by  the  wind  of  a  ball,  but 
the  surgeons  declared  that  there  could  be  no 
ecchymosis  without  actual  contact,  and  that  I 
must  have  been  grazed  by  a  grapeshot  or  an 
exploded  shell.  This  was  to  have  found  myself 
only  half  an  inch  from  death,  yet,  in  Mercutio's 
phrase,  it  was  enough.  I  was  long  in  hospital, 
my  life  being  saved  from  the  perils  of  perito 
nitis,  I  was  told,  by  the  fact  that  I  had  never 
used  whiskey.  I  came  North  on  a  furlough  in 
1863  ;  went  back  too  soon,  as  men  often  did  ; 
found  the  regiment  subdivided  and  demoral 
ized  ;  and  having  to  overwork  in  bringing  it 
into  shape,  with  the  effects  of  malaria  added,  I 
had  ultimately  to  resign  in  the  autumn  of  1864, 


264  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

after  two  years'  service,  foregoing  all  hopes  of 
further  military  experience.  Up  to  this  time  I 
had  stood  the  influence  of  a  malarial  climate 
better  than  most  of  my  officers,  and  had  re 
ceived  from  the  major,  a  somewhat  frank  and 
outspoken  personage,  the  assurance  that  I  was 
"tougher  than  a  biled  owl." 

During  a  part  of  my  invalidism  I  was  shel 
tered  —  together  with  my  surgeon,  who  was 
also  ill  —  by  my  friend  Mrs.  Jean  M.  Lander, 
widow  of  the  celebrated  General  Lander,  and 
well  known  in  earlier  days  on  the  dramatic 
stage;  a  woman  much  respected  and  beloved 
by  all  who  knew  her  fine  qualities.  She  had 
tried  to  establish  hospitals,  but  had  always  been 
met  by  the  somewhat  whimsical  opposition  of 
Miss  Dorothea  L.  Dix,  the  national  superinten 
dent  of  nurses,  a  lady  who  had  something  of 
the  habitual  despotism  of  the  saints,  and  who 
had  somewhat  exasperated  the  soldiers  by  mak 
ing  anything  like  youth  or  good  looks  an  abso 
lute  bar  to  hospital  employment ;  the  soldiers 
naturally  reasoning  that  it  assisted  recovery  to 
have  pleasant  faces  to  look  upon.  One  of  Miss 
Dix's  circulars  read  thus  :  "  No  woman  under 
thirty  years  need  apply  to  serve  in  government 
hospitals.  All  nurses  are  required  to  be  very 
plain-looking  women.  Their  dresses  must  be 
brown  or  black,  with  no  bows,  no  curls  or  jew- 


CIVIL  WAR  265 

elry,  and  no  hoopskirts."  Undaunted  by  this 
well-meant  prohibition,  Mrs.  Lander,  who  was 
then  a  little  more  than  thirty,  but  irreclaimably 
good  looking,  came  down  to  Beaufort,  South 
Carolina,  accompanied  by  her  mother,  in  the 
hope  of  establishing  a  hospital  there.  A  sudden 
influx  of  wounded  men  gave  General  Saxton, 
erelong,  the  opportunity  of  granting  her  wish, 
and  she  entered  with  immense  energy  into  her 
new  task.  She  had  on  her  hands  some  fifty 
invalid  soldiers,  and  took  for  their  use  an  empty 
building,  which  had  yet  to  be  fitted  up,  warmed, 
and  properly  furnished  ;  even  the  requisite  beds 
were  difficult  to  obtain.  She  would  come  in 
abruptly  some  morning  and  say  to  Dr.  Rogers 
and  myself,  "  Gentlemen,  to-day  I  must  remove 
every  bedstead  in  this  house  to  the  hospital 
building.  You  have  blankets  ? "  We  could 
only  meekly  respond  that  we  had  blankets,  and 
that  the  floor  was  wide.  Twenty-four  hours 
after,  it  would  be,  "  Gentlemen,  this  day  the 
cooking-stove  goes  !  Your  servants  can  cook 
by  the  open  fire  ?  "  Oh  yes,  our  servants  could 
easily  manage  that,  we  replied,  and  accepted 
the  inadequate  results.  One  day  there  came  a 
rap  at  the  old-fashioned  door-knocker,  and  Mrs. 
Lander,  passing  swiftly  through  the  hall,  flung 
the  portal  open  regally,  as  if  it  were  in  Macbeth 's 
palace.  We  heard  a  slender  voice  explaining 


266  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

that  the  visitor  was  the  Reverend  Mr.  So-and- 
So  from  New  York,  just  arrived  by  steamer. 
"  Mr.  So-and-So  ? "  said  our  prima  donna.  "  De 
lighted  to  see  you,  sir !  Can  you  dress  wounds  ? " 
—  this  in  Siddons  tones.  The  poor  man  started 
back,  and  said  apologetically,  "  Spiritual  wounds, 
madam  !  "  "  No  time  for  that,  sir,  now,  —  no 
time  for  that ;  there  are  still  thirty  men  in  yon 
der  hospital  with  no  beds  to  lie  on ;  we  must 
secure  the  common  comforts  first."  Timidly 
explaining  that  he  had  come  from  the  North  to 
Beaufort  for  his  health,  and  that  he  had  been 
recommended  to  her  for  "a  comfortable  lodg 
ing,"  the  pallid  youth  withdrew.  It  was  no 
fault  of  his  that  he  was  forlorn  and  useless  and 
decidedly  in  the  way  at  an  army  station  ;  but  I 
could  not  help  wondering  if,  after  his  return,  he 
would  preach  a  sermon  on  the  obvious  defer 
ence  due  to  man  as  the  military  sex,  and  on  the 
extreme  uselessness  of  women  in  time  of  war. 

I  have  given  few  details  as  to  my  way  of 
living  in  South  Carolina  and  Florida,  because 
much  of  it  was  described  a  few  years  after  in 
a  volume  called  "  Army  Life  in  a  Black  Regi 
ment,"  which  was  translated  into  French  by 
Madame  de  Gasparin  in  1884.  There  was 
plenty  that  was  picturesque  about  this  experi 
ence,  and  there  were  some  things  that  were 
dangerous ;  we  all  fought,  for  instance,  with 


CIVIL  WAR  267 

ropes  around  our  necks,  the  Confederate  author 
ities  having  denied  to  officers  of  colored  regi 
ments  the  usual  privileges,  if  taken  prisoners, 
and  having  required  them  to  be  treated  as  fel 
ons.  Personally,  I  never  believed  that  they 
would  execute  this  threat,  and  so  far  as  we 
were  concerned  they  had  no  opportunity ;  but 
the  prospect  of  hanging  was  not  a  pleasant 
thing  even  if  kept  in  the  background,  nor  was 
it  agreeable  to  our  friends  at  home.  In  other 
respects  my  life  in  the  army  had  been  enjoy 
able  ;  but  it  had  been,  after  all,  one  mainly  of 
outpost  and  guerrilla  duty,  and  I  had  shared 
in  none  of  the  greater  campaigns  of  the  war. 
I  had  once  received  from  an  officer,  then  high 
in  influence,  what  was  equivalent  to  an  offer 
of  promotion,  if  I  would  only  write  a  letter  to 
Senator  Sumner  asking  for  it ;  but  this  I  had 
declined  to  do.  As  my  promotion  to  a  colonelcy 
had  come  unsought,  so,  I  preferred,  should  any 
higher  commission.  For  nominal  rank  I  cared 
little,  and  I  should  have  been  unwilling  to  leave 
my  regiment ;  but  I  should  have  liked  to  see 
great  battles  and  to  fill  out  my  experience 
through  all  the  grades,  if  it  had  been  possible. 
I  came  nearest  to  this  larger  experience  in  the 
case  of  the  aimless  but  bloody  engagement  of 
Olustee,  where  I  should  have  commanded  a 
brigade  had  not  my  regiment  been  ordered 


268  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

back,  even  after  being  actually  embarked  for 
Florida. 

I  never  felt  at  all  sure  how  far  up  in  the 
service  I  might  have  climbed,  even  under  the 
most  favorable  circumstances ;  for  that  was  al 
ways  a  hard  thing  to  predict  of  any  one,  in 
those  days,  even  apart  from  the  frequent  oc 
currences  of  favoritism  and  injustice.  I  saw 
around  me  men  who  had  attained  a  much 
higher  position  than  mine  without  a  greater 
outfit,  perhaps,  of  brains  or  energy ;  but 
whether  I  could  have  shown  that  wide  grasp, 
that  ready  military  instinct,  which  belong  to 
the  natural  leader  of  large  forces,  I  can  never 
know ;  and  I  am  afraid  that  I  might  always 
have  been  a  little  too  careful  of  my  men.  Cer 
tainly,  I  should  have  been  absolutely  incapable 
of  that  unsparing  and  almost  merciless  sac 
rifice  of  them  which  made  the  reputation  of 
some  very  eminent  officers ;  while  for  the 
mere  discharge  of  ordinary  duty  I  might  have 
been  as  good  as  my  neighbors.  After  all,  it 
must  be  admitted  that  marked  military  talent 
is  a  special  gift,  and  a  man  who  has  not  had 
the  opportunity  can  no  more  tell  whether  he 
would  have  displayed  that  faculty  than  a  man 
who  has  never  learned  chess  can  tell  whether 
he  might  or  might  not  have  developed  into  a 
champion  player.  For  the  final  result,  my 


CIVIL  WAR  269 

sagacious  elder  brother  felt  content,  he  told 
me,  that  I  should  leave  the  army  with  the  rank 
of  colonel  only.  He  said,  with  his  accustomed 
keen  philosophy,  "  A  man  may  go  through  his 
later  life  quite  respectably  under  the  title  of 
colonel,  but  that  of  general  is  too  much  for 
a  civilian  to  bear  up  under,  and  I  am  glad  you 
stopped  short  of  it."  For  myself,  I  felt  that 
to  have  commanded,  with  fair  credit,  the  first 
slave-regiment  in  the  Civil  War  was  well  worth 
one  man's  life  or  health  ;  and  I  lived  to  see 
nearly  two  hundred  thousand  (178,975)  black 
soldiers  marching  in  that  column  where  the 
bayonets  of  the  First  South  Carolina  had  once 
gleamed  alone. 

When  I  left  the  service,  two  years  of  army 
life,  with  small  access  to  books,  had  so  far 
checked  the  desire  for  active  literary  pursuits, 
on  my  part,  that  I  should  actually  have  been 
content  not  to  return  to  them.  I  should  have 
liked  better  to  do  something  that  involved  the 
charge  and  government  of  men,  as  for  instance 
in  the  position  of  agent  of  a  large  mill  or  a 
railway  enterprise.  This  mood  of  mind  was 
really  identical  with  that  which  led  some  vol 
unteer  officers  to  enter  the  regular  army,  and 
others  to  undertake  cotton-raising  at  the  South. 
In  few  cases  did  this  impulse  last  long  ;  a  regu 
lar  army  career  in  time  of  peace  usually  proving 


270  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

unattractive,  as  did  also  the  monotony  of  the 
plantation.  In  my  own  case  this  unsettled 
feeling  soon  passed  away,  and  the  old  love  of 
letters  rapidly  revived ;  —  the  editing  of  the 
"  Harvard  Memorial  Biographies  "  affording  an 
easy  transition,  as  was  also  the  work  of  trans 
lating  the  noble  writings  of  Epictetus,  of  whom 
I  could  think  with  satisfaction  that  he  was  him 
self  a  slave,  and  was  the  favorite  author  of  Tous- 
saint  L'Ouverture,  the  black  military  leader. 
Moreover,  my  wife  had  removed  for  health's 
sake  to  Newport,  Rhode  Island,  and  I  found 
ready  distraction  in  the  new  friendships  and 
social  life  of  that  attractive  place  of  residence. 
Of  this  portion  of  my  life  I  have  already  given 
some  glimpse  in  the  novel  called  "  Malbone  " 
and  in  the  collection  of  sketches  called  "  Old- 
port  Days,"  so  that  I  will  not  dwell  further 
upon  it  here. 


IX 

LITERARY   LONDON    TWENTY   YEARS   AGO 

No  day  in  an  American's  recollection  can 
easily  be  more  cheerful  than  that  in  which  he 
first  found  himself  within  reach  of  London, 
prepared,  as  Willis  said  half  a  century  ago,  to 
see  whole  shelves  of  his  library  walking  about 
in  coats  and  gowns.  This  event  did  not  hap 
pen  to  me  for  the  first  time  until  I  was  forty- 
eight  years  old,  and  had  been  immersed  at 
home  in  an  atmosphere  of  tolerably  cultivated 
men  and  women  ;  but  the  charm  of  the  new 
experience  was  none  the  less  great,  and  I  in 
spected  my  little  parcel  of  introductory  letters 
as  if  each  were  a  key  to  unlock  a  world  un 
known.  Looking  back,  I  cannot  regret  that  I 
did  not  have  this  experience  earlier  in  life.  Val 
entine,  in  the  "Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona," 
says  that  homekeeping  youth  have  ever  homely 
wits  ;  yet  it  is  something  to  have  wits  at  all, 
and  perhaps  there  is  more  chance  of  this  if 
one  is  not  transplanted  too  soon.  Our  young 
people  are  now  apt  to  be  sent  too  early  to  Eu 
rope,  and  therefore  do  not  approach  it  with  their 


272  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

own  individualities  sufficiently  matured ;  but 
in  those  days  foreign  travel  was  much  more  of 
an  enterprise  than  now,  and  no  one  could  ac 
cuse  me,  on  my  arrival,  of  being  unreasonably 
young. 

I  visited  London  in  1872,  and  again  in  1878, 
and  some  recollections  based  on  the  letters 
and  diaries  of  those  two  years  will  be  combined 
in  this  chapter.  The  London  atmosphere  and 
dramatis  persona  changed  little  within  the  in 
terval,  but  the  whole  period  was  separated  by 
a  distinct  literary  cycle  from  that  on  which 
Emerson  looked  back  in  1843.  He  then  wrote 
that  Europe  had  already  lost  ground;  that  it 
was  not  "  as  in  the  golden  days  when  the  same 
town  would  show  the  traveler  the  noble  heads 
of  Scott,  of  Mackintosh,  Coleridge,  Words 
worth,  Cuvier,  and  Humboldt."  Yet  I  scarcely 
missed  even  these  heads,  nearly  thirty  years 
later  than  the  time  when  he  wrote,  in  the  pro 
spect  of  seeing  Carlyle,  Darwin,  Tennyson, 
Browning,  Tyndall,  Huxley,  Matthew  Arnold, 
and  Froude,  with  many  minor  yet  interesting 
personalities.  Since  the  day  when  I  met  these 
distinguished  men  another  cycle  has  passed, 
and  they  have  all  disappeared.  Of  those  whom 
I  saw  twenty-five  years  ago  at  the  Athenaeum 
Club,  there  remain  only  Herbert  Spencer  and 
the  delightful  Irish  poet  Aubrey  de  Vere,  — 


LITERARY  LONDON  273 

and  though  the  Club  now  holds  on  its  lists 
the  names  of  a  newer  generation,  Besant  and 
Hardy,  Lang  and  Haggard,  I  cannot  think  that 
what  has  been  added  quite  replaces  what  has 
been  lost.  Yet  the  younger  generation  itself 
may  think  otherwise ;  and  my  task  at  present 
deals  with  the  past  alone.  It  has  to  do  with 
the  older  London  group,  and  I  may  write  of 
this  the  more  freely  inasmuch  as  I  did  not 
write  during  the  lifetime  of  the  men  described ; 
nor  do  I  propose,  even  at  this  day,  to  report 
conversations  with  any  persons  now  living. 

My  first  duty  in  England  was,  of  course,  to 
ascertain  my  proper  position  as  an  American, 
and  to  know  what  was  thought  of  us.  This 
was  easier  twenty-five  years  ago  than  it  now  is, 
since  the  English  ignorance  of  Americans  was 
then  even  greater  than  it  is  to-day,  and  was 
perhaps  yet  more  frankly  expressed.  One  of 
the  first  houses  where  I  spent  an  evening  was 
the  very  hospitable  home  of  a  distinguished 
scholar,  then  the  president  of  the  Philological 
Society,  and  the  highest  authority  on  the  vari 
ous  dialects  of  the  English  language;  but  I 
was  led  to  think  that  his  sweet  and  kindly  wife 
had  not  fully  profited  by  his  learning.  She 
said  to  me,  "Is  it  not  rather  strange  that  you 
Americans,  who  seem  such  a  friendly  and  cor 
dial  race,  should  invariably  address  a  newcomer 


274  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

as  '  stranger,'  while  we  English,  who  are 
thought  to  be  cold  and  distant,  are  more  likely 
to  say  '  my  friend '  ?  "  She  would  scarcely 
credit  it  when  I  told  her  that  I  had  hardly  ever 
in  my  life  been  greeted  by  the  word  she 
thought  so  universal ;  and  then  she  added,  "  I 
have  been  told  that  Americans  begin  every 
sentence  with  '  Well,  stranger,  I  guess.' '  I 
was  compelled  to  plead  guilty  to  the  national 
use  of  two  of  these  words,  but  still  demurred 
as  to  the  "stranger."  Then  she  sought  for 
more  general  information,  and  asked  if  it  were 
really  true,  as  she  had  been  told,  that  railway 
trains  in  America  were  often  stopped  for  the 
purpose  of  driving  cattle  off  the  track.  I  ad 
mitted  to  her  that  in  some  regions  of  the  far 
West,  where  cattle  abounded  and  fencing  ma 
terial  was  scarce,  this  might  still  be  done ;  and 
I  did  not  think  it  necessary  to  say  that  I  had 
seen  it  done,  in  my  youth,  within  twenty  miles 
of  Boston.  But  I  explained  that  we  Ameri 
cans,  being  a  very  inventive  race,  had  devised 
a  little  apparatus  to  be  placed  in  front  of  the 
locomotive  in  order  to  turn  aside  all  obstruc 
tions  ;  and  I  told  her  that  this  excellent  inven 
tion  was  called  a  cow-catcher.  She  heard  this 
with  interest,  and  then  her  kindly  face  grew 
anxious,  and  she  said  hesitatingly,  "But  isn't  it 
rather  dangerous  for  the  boy  ? "  I  said  wonder- 


LITERARY   LONDON  275 

ingly,  "What  boy?"  and  she  reiterated,  "For 
the  boy,  don't  you  know, — the  cow-catcher." 
Her  motherly  fancy  had  depicted  an  unfortu 
nate  youth  balanced  on  the  new  contrivance, 
probably  holding  on  with  one  arm,  and  dispers 
ing  dangerous  herds  with  the  other. 

One  had  also  to  meet,  at  that  time,  sharp 
questions  as  to  one's  origin,  and  sometimes 
unexpected  sympathy  when  this  was  ascer 
tained.  A  man  of  educated  appearance  was 
then  often  asked,  —  and  indeed  is  still  liable 
to  be  asked,  —  on  his  alluding  to  America,  how 
much  time  he  had  spent  there.  This  question 
was  put  to  me,  in  1878,  by  a  very  lively  young 
maiden  at  the  table  of  a  clergyman  who  was 
my  host  at  Reading  ;  she  went  on  to  inform 
me  that  I  spoke  English  differently  from  any 
Americans  she  had  ever  seen,  and  she  had 
known  "  heaps  of  them  "  in  Florence.  When 
I  had  told  her  that  I  spoke  the  language  just 
as  I  had  done  for  about  half  a  century,  and  as 
my  father  and  mother  had  spoken  it  before  me, 
she  caught  at  some  other  remark  of  mine,  and 
asked  with  hearty  surprise,  "But  you  do  not 
mean  that  you  really  like  being  an  American, 
do  you  ? "  When  I  said  that  I  should  be  very 
sorry  not  to  be,  she  replied,  "  I  can  only  say 
that  I  never  thought  of  such  a  thing ;  I  sup 
posed  that  you  were  all  Americans  because  you 


276  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

could  n't  help  it ; "  and  I  assured  her  that  we 
had  this  reason,  also.  She  sung,  later  in  the 
evening,  with  a  dramatic  power  I  never  heard 
surpassed,  Kingsley's  thrilling  ballad  of  "  Lor 
raine,"  of  which  the  heroine  is  a  jockey's  wife, 
who  is  compelled  by  her  husband  to  ride  a 
steeple-chase,  at  which  she  meets  her  death. 
The  young  singer  had  set  the  ballad  to  music, 
and  it  was  one  of  those  coincidences  stranger 
than  any  fiction  that  she  herself  was  killed  by 
a  runaway  horse  but  a  few  months  later. 

An  American  had  also  to  accustom  himself, 
in  those  days,  to  the  surprise  which  might  be 
expressed  at  his  knowing  the  commonplaces 
of  English  history,  and  especially  of  English 
legend.  On  first  crossing  the  border  into  Scot 
land,  I  was  asked  suddenly  by  my  only  rail 
way  companion,  a  thin,  keen  man  with  high 
cheek-bones,  who  had  hitherto  kept  silence, 
"Did  ye  ever  hear  of  Yarrow?"  I  felt  in 
clined  to  answer,  like  a  young  American  girl 
of  my  acquaintance  when  asked  by  a  young 
man  if  she  liked  flowers,  "  What  a  silly  ques 
tion  ! "  Restraining  myself,  I  explained  to  him 
that  every  educated  American  was  familiar  with 
any  name  mentioned  by  Burns,  by  Scott,  or 
in  the  "Border  Minstrelsy."  Set  free  by  this, 
he  showed  me  many  things  and  places  which  I 
was  glad  to  see,  —  passes  by  which  the  High- 


LITERARY   LONDON  277 

land  raiders  came  down,  valleys  where  they 
hid  the  cattle  they  had  lifted ;  he  showed  me 
where  their  fastnesses  were,  and  where  "  Tin- 
tock  tap  "  was,  on  which  a  lassie  might  doubt 
less  still  be  wooed  if  she  had  siller  enough.  By 
degrees  we  came  to  literature  in  general,  and 
my  companion  proved  to  be  the  late  Princi 
pal  Shairp,  professor  of  poetry  at  Oxford,  and 
author  of  books  well  known  in  America. 

I  encountered  still  another  instance  of  the 
curious  social  enigma  then  afforded  by  the 
American  in  England,  when  I  was  asked,  soon 
after  my  arrival,  to  breakfast  with  Mr.  Froude, 
the  historian.  As  I  approached  the  house  I 
saw  a  lady  speaking  to  some  children  at  the 
door,  and  she  went  in  before  I  reached  it  Be 
ing  admitted,  I  saw  another  lady  glance  at  me 
from  the  region  of  the  breakfast  parlor,  and 
was  also  dimly  aware  of  a  man  who  looked  over 
the  stairway.  After  I  had  been  cordially  re 
ceived  and  was  seated  at  the  breakfast-table,  it 
gradually  came  out  that  the  first  lady  was  Mrs. 
Froude's  sister,  the  second  was  Mrs.  Froude 
herself,  while  it  was  her  husband  who  had 
looked  over  the  stairs ;  and  I  learned  further 
more  that  they  had  severally  decided  that,  who 
ever  I  was,  I  could  not  be  the  American  gen 
tleman  who  was  expected  at  breakfast.  What 
was  their  conception  of  an  American,  —  what 


278  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

tomahawk  and  scalping-knife  were  looked  for, 
what  bearskin  or  bareskin,  or  whether  it  was 
that  I  had  omitted  the  customary  war-whoop, 
—  this  never  was  explained.  Perhaps  it  was  as 
in  Irving' s  case,  who  thought  his  kind  recep 
tion  in  England  due  to  the  fact  that  he  used  a 
goose-quill  in  his  hand  instead  of  sticking  it  in 
his  hair,  —  a  distinction  which  lost  all  its  value, 
however,  with  the  advent  of  steel  pens.  At 
any  rate,  my  reception  was  as  kind  as  possible, 
though  my  interest  in  Froude,  being  based 
wholly  on  his  early  book,  "The  Nemesis  of 
Faith,"  was  somewhat  impaired  by  the  fact 
that  he  treated  that  work  as  merely  an  indis 
cretion  of  boyhood,  and  was  more  interested 
in  himself  as  the  author  of  a  history,  which, 
unluckily,  I  had  not  then  read.  We  met  better 
upon  a  common  interest  in  Carlyle,  a  few  days 
later,  and  he  took  me  to  see  that  eminent 
author,  and  to  join  the  afternoon  walk  of  the 
two  in  Hyde  Park.  Long  ago,  in  the  "At 
lantic  Monthly,"  I  described  this  occasion,  and 
dwelt  on  the  peculiar  quality  of  Carlyle' s  laugh, 
which,  whenever  it  burst  out  in  its  full  volume, 
had  the  effect  of  dissolving  all  the  clouds  of  his 
apparent  cynicism  and  leaving  clear  sky  behind. 
Whatever  seeming  ungraciousness  had  pre 
ceded,  his  laugh  revealed  the  genuine  humorist 
at  last,  so  that  he  almost  seemed  to  have  been 


LITERARY    LONDON  279 

playing  with  himself  in  the  fierce  things  he  had 
said.  When  he  laughed,  he  appeared  instantly 
to  follow  Emerson's  counsel  and  to  write  upon 
the  lintels  of  his  doorpost  "  Whim ! "  I  was 
especially  impressed  with  this  peculiar  quality 
during  our  walk  in  the  park. 

Nothing  could  well  be  more  curious  than 
the  look  and  costume  of  Carlyle.  He  had  been 
living  in  London  nearly  forty  years,  yet  he  had 
the  untamed  aspect  of  one  just  arrived  from 
Ecclefechan.  He  wore  "an  old  experienced 
coat,"  such  as  Thoreau  attributes  to  his  Scotch 
fisherman,  —  one  having  that  unreasonably  high 
collar  of  other  days,  in  which  the  head  was 
sunk ;  his  hair  was  coarse  and  stood  up  at  its 
own  will ;  his  bushy  whiskers  were  thrust  into 
prominence  by  one  of  those  stiff  collars  which 
the  German  students  call  "  father-killers,"  from 
a  tradition  that  the  sharp  points  once  pierced 
the  jugular  vein  of  a  parent  during  an  affection 
ate  embrace.  In  this  guise,  with  a  fur  cap  and 
a  stout  walking  -  stick,  he  accompanied  Froude 
and  myself  on  our  walk.  I  observed  that  near 
his  Chelsea  home  the  passers-by  regarded  him 
with  a  sort  of  familiar  interest,  farther  off  with 
undisguised  curiosity,  and  at  Hyde  Park,  again, 
with  a  sort  of  recognition,  as  of  an  accustomed 
figure.  At  one  point  on  our  way  some  poor 
children  were  playing  on  a  bit  of  rough  ground 


280  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

lately  included  in  a  park,  and  they  timidly 
stopped  their  frolic  as  we  drew  near.  The 
oldest  boy,  looking  from  one  to  another  of  us, 
selected  Carlyle  as  the  least  formidable,  and 
said,  "  I  say,  mister,  may  we  roll  on  this  here 
grass  ? "  Carlyle  stopped,  leaning  on  his  staff, 
and  said  in  his  homeliest  accents,  "Yes,  my 
little  fellow,  ye  may  r-r-roll  at  discraytion ; " 
upon  which  the  children  resumed  their  play, 
one  little  girl  repeating  his  answer  audibly,  as 
if  in  a  vain  effort  to  take  in  the  whole  meaning 
of  the  long  word. 

One  of  my  pleasantest  London  dinners  was 
at  the  ever  hospitable  house  of  the  late  Sir 
Frederick  Pollock ;  the  other  persons  present 
being  Lady  Pollock,  with  her  eldest  son,  the 
present  wearer  of  the  title,  and  two  most  agree 
able  men,  —  Mr.  Venable,  for  many  years  the 
editor  of  the  annual  summary  of  events  in 
the  "  London  Times,"  and  Mr.  Newton,  of  the 
British  Museum.  The  latter  was  an  encyclo 
paedia  of  art  and  antiquities,  and  Mr.  Venable 
of  all  the  social  gossip  of  a  century ;  it  was 
like  talking  with  Horace  Walpole.  Of  one  sub 
ject  alone  I  knew  more  than  they  did,  namely, 
Gilbert  Stuart's  pictures,  one  of  which,  called 
The  Skater,  had  just  been  unearthed  in  Lon 
don,  and  was  much  admired.  "Why  don't 
they  inquire  about  the  artist  ?  "  said  Sir  Fred- 


LITERARY   LONDON  281 

erick  Pollock.  "  He  might  have  done  some 
thing  else."  They  would  hardly  believe  that 
his  pictures  were  well  known  in  America,  and 
that  his  daughter  was  still  a  conspicuous  per 
son  in  society.  Much  of  the  talk  fell  upon 
lawyers  and  clergymen.  They  told  a  story  of 
Lord  Chief  Justice  Cockburn,  that  he  had  actu 
ally  evaded  payment  of  his  tailor's  bill  on  the 
ground  that  it  had  not  been  presented  for  six 
years,  which  in  England  is  the  legal  limit. 
They  vied  with  one  another  in  tales  of  the 
eccentricities  of  English  clergymen,  —  of  one 
who  was  eighteen  years  incumbent  of  an  im 
portant  parish,  and  lived  in  France  all  the  time ; 
of  another  who  did  not  conduct  service  in  the 
afternoon,  as  that  was  the  time  when  it  was 
necessary  for  him  to  take  his  spaniels  out;  of 
another  who  practiced  his  hawks  in  the  church  ; 
of  another  who,  being  a  layman,  became  master 
of  Caius  College  (pronounced  Keys)  at  Oxford, 
had  a  church  living  at  his  disposal,  and  pre 
sented  it  to  himself,  taking  orders  for  the  pur 
pose.  After  officiating  for  the  first  time  he 
said  to  the  sexton,  "  Do  you  know,  that 's  a 
very  good  service  of  your  church?"  He  had 
literally  never  heard  it  before !  But  all  agreed 
that  these  tales  were  of  the  past,  and  that  the 
tribe  of  traditional  fox-hunting  and  horse-racing 
parsons  was  almost  extinct.  I  can  testify, 


282  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

however,  to  having  actually  encountered  one  of 
the  latter  class  within  a  year. 

I  met  Matthew  Arnold  one  day  by  appoint 
ment  at  the  Athenaeum,  in  1878,  and  expressed 
some  surprise  that  he  had  not  been  present  at 
the  meeting  of  the  Association  LitteVaire  In 
ternationale  which  I  had  just  attended  in  Paris. 
He  said  that  he  had  declined  because  such 
things  were  always  managed  with  a  sole  view 
to  the  glorification  of  France ;  yet  he  admitted 
that  France  was  the  only  nation  which  really 
held  literature  in  honor,  as  was  to  be  seen  in 
its  copyright  laws,  —  England  and  America 
caring  far  less  for  it,  he  thought.  He  told  me 
that  his  late  address  on  "Equality"  was  well 
enough  received  by  all  the  audience  except  the 
Duke  of  Northumberland,  the  presiding  officer, 
and  in  general  better  by  the  higher  class,  which 
well  knew  that  it  was  materialized,  than  by 
the  middle  class,  which  did  not  know  that  it 
was  vulgarized.  Lord  William  Russell,  whom  I 
found  talking  with  him  as  I  came  up,  had  said 
to  him,  with  amusement,  "  There  was  I  sitting 
on  the  very  front  seat,  during  the  lecture,  in 
the  character  of  the  Wicked  Lord."  Arnold 
fully  agreed  with  a  remark  which  I  quoted  to 
him  from  Mrs.  George  Bancroft,  who  had  been 
familiar  with  two  courts,  to  the  effect  that 
there  was  far  more  sycophancy  to  rank  among 


LITERARY   LONDON  283 

literary  men  in  London  than  in  Berlin.  She 
said  that  she  had  never  known  an  English 
scholar  who,  if  he  had  chanced  to  dine  with  a 
nobleman,  would  not  speak  of  it  to  everybody, 
whereas  no  German  savant  would  think  of 
mentioning  such  a  thing.  "Very  true,"  replied 
Arnold,  "  but  the  German  would  be  less  likely 
to  be  invited  to  the  dinner."  He  thought  that 
rank  was  far  more  exclusive  and  narrow  in 
Germany,  as  seen  in  the  fact  that  men  of  rank 
did  not  marry  out  of  their  circle,  a  thing  which 
frequently  took  place  in  England.  He  also 
pointed  out  that  the  word  mesalliance  was  not 
English,  nor  was  there  any  word  in  our  lan 
guage  to  take  its  place.  Arnold  seemed  to 
me,  personally,  as  he  had  always  seemed  in  lit 
erature,  a  keen  but  by  no  means  judicial  critic, 
and  in  no  proper  sense  a  poet.  That  he  is 
held  to  be  such  is  due,  in  my  judgment,  only 
to  the  fact  that  he  has  represented  the  cur 
rent  attitude  of  mind  in  many  cultivated  per 
sons. 

I  visited  Darwin  twice  in  his  own  house  at 
an  interval  of  six  years,  once  passing  the  night 
there.  On  both  occasions  I  found  him  the 
same,  but  with  health  a  little  impaired  after 
the  interval,  —  always  the  same  simple,  noble, 
absolutely  truthful  soul.  Without  the  fasci 
nating  and  boyish  eagerness  of  Agassiz,  he  was 


284  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

also  utterly  free  from  the  vehement  partisan 
ship  which  this  quality  brings  with  it,  and  he 
showed  a  mind  ever  humble  and  open  to  new 
truth.  Tall  and  flexible,  with  the  overhanging 
brow  and  long  features  best  seen  in  Mrs.  Cam 
eron's  photograph,  he  either  lay  half  reclined 
on  the  sofa  or  sat  on  high  cushions,  obliged 
continually  to  guard  against  the  cruel  digestive 
trouble  which  haunted  his  whole  life.  I  remem 
ber  that  at  my  first  visit,  in  1872,  I  was  telling 
him  of  an  address  before  the  Philological  So 
ciety  by  Dr.  Alexander  J.  Ellis,  in  which  he  had 
quoted  from  "Through  the  Looking -Glass" 
the  description  of  what  were  called  portman 
teau  words,  into  which  various  meanings  were 
crammed.  As  I  spoke,  Mrs.  Darwin  glided  qui 
etly  away,  got  the  book,  and  looked  up  the 
passage.  "Read  it  out,  my  dear,"  said  her 
husband  ;  and  as  she  read  the  amusing  page, 
he  laid  his  head  back  and  laughed  heartily.  It 
was  altogether  delightful  to  see  the  man  who 
had  revolutionized  the  science  of  the  world  giv 
ing  himself  wholly  to  the  enjoyment  of  Alice 
and  her  pretty  nonsense.  Akin  to  this  was 
his  hearty  enjoyment  of  Mark  Twain,  who  had 
then  hardly  begun  to  be  regarded  as  above  the 
Josh  Billings  grade  of  humorist ;  but  Darwin 
was  amazed  that  I  had  not  read  "  The  Jump 
ing  Frog,"  and  said  that  he  always  kept  it  by 


LITERARY   LONDON  285 

his  bedside  for  midnight  amusement.  I  recall 
with  a  different  kind  of  pleasure  the  interest 
he  took  in  my  experience  with  the  colored 
race,  and  the  faith  which  he  expressed  in  the 
negroes.  This  he  afterward  stated  more  fully 
in  a  letter  to  me,  which  may  be  found  in  his 
published  memoirs.  It  is  worth  recording  that 
even  the  incredulous  Carlyle  had  asked  eagerly 
about  the  colored  soldiers,  and  had  drawn  the 
conclusion,  of  his  own  accord,  that  in  their 
case  the  negroes  should  be  enfranchised.  "  You 
could  do  no  less,"  he  said,  "for  the  men  who 
had  stood  by  you." 

Darwin's  house  at  Beckenham  was  ap 
proached  from  Orpington  station  by  a  delight 
ful  drive  through  lanes,  among  whose  tufted 
hedges  I  saw  the  rare  spectacle  of  two  Ameri 
can  elms,  adding  those  waving  and  graceful 
lines  which  we  their  fellow  countrymen  are 
apt  to  miss  in  England.  Within  the  grounds 
there  were  masses  of  American  rhododendrons, 
which  grow  so  rapidly  in  England,  and  these 
served  as  a  background  to  flower-beds  more 
gorgeous  than  our  drier  climate  can  usually 
show. 

At  my  second  visit  Darwin  was  full  of  in 
terest  in  the  Peabody  Museum  at  Yale  College, 
and  quoted  with  approval  what  Huxley  had 
told  him,  that  there  was  more  to  be  learned 


286  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

from  that  one  collection  than  from  all  the 
museums  of  Europe.  But  for  his  chronic  sea 
sickness,  he  said,  he  would  visit  America  to 
see  it.  He  went  to  bed  early  that  night,  I 
remember,  and  the  next  morning  I  saw  him, 
soon  after  seven,  apparently  returning  from  a 
walk  through  the  grounds,  —  an  odd  figure, 
with  white  beard,  and  with  a  short  cape  wrapped 
round  his  shoulders,  striding  swiftly  with  his 
long  legs.  He  said  that  he  always  went  out 
before  breakfast,  —  besides  breakfasting  at  the 
very  un-English  hour  of  half -past  seven, — and 
that  he  was  also  watching  some  little  experi 
ments.  His  son  added  reproachfully,  "There 
it  is  :  he  pretends  not  to  be  at  work,  but  he  is 
always  watching  some  of  his  little  experiments, 
as  he  calls  them,  and  gets  up  in  the  night  to 
see  them."  Nothing  could  be  more  delightful 
than  the  home  relations  of  the  Darwin  family  ; 
and  the  happy  father  once  quoted  to  me  a 
prediction  made  by  some  theological  authority 
that  his  sons  would  show  the  terrible  effects  of 
such  unrighteous  training,  and  added  proudly, 
looking  round  at  them,  "  I  do  not  think  I  have 
much  reason  to  be  ashamed." 

I  think  it  was  on  this  same  day  that  I  passed 
from  Darwin  to  Browning,  meeting  the  latter 
at  the  Athenaeum  Club.  It  seemed  strange  to 
ask  a  page  to  find  Mr.  Browning  for  me,  as  if 


LITERARY   LONDON  287 

it  were  the  easiest  thing  imaginable;  and  it 
reminded  me  of  the  time  when  the  little  daugh 
ter  of  a  certain  poetess  quietly  asked  at  the 
dinner-table,  in  my  hearing,  between  two  bites 
of  an  apple,  "Mamma,  did  I  ever  see  Mr. 
Shakespeare  ?  "  The  page  spoke  to  a  rather 
short  and  strongly  built  man  who  sat  in  a  win 
dow-seat,  and  who  jumped  up  and  grasped  my 
hand  so  cordially  that  it  might  have  suggested 
the  remark  of  Madame  Navarro  (Mary  Ander 
son)  about  him,  —  made,  however,  at  a  later 
day,  —  that  he  did  not  appear  like  a  poet,  but 
rather  "like  one  of  our  agreeable  Southern 
gentlemen."  He  seemed  a  man  of  every  day, 
or  like  the  typical  poet  of  his  own  "  How  It 
Strikes  a  Contemporary."  In  all  this  he  was, 
as  will  be  seen  later,  the  very  antipodes  of  Ten 
nyson.  He  had  a  large  head  of  German  shape, 
broadening  behind,  with  light  and  thin  gray 
hair  and  whitish  beard;  he  had  blue  eyes, 
and  the  most  kindly  heart.  It  seemed  wholly 
appropriate  that  he  should  turn  aside  presently 
to  consult  Anthony  Trollope  about  some  poor 
author  for  whom  they  held  funds.  He  ex 
pressed  pleasure  at  finding  in  me  an  early  sub 
scriber  to  his  "  Bells  and  Pomegranates,"  and 
told  me  how  he  published  that  series  in  the 
original  cheap  form  in  order  to  save  his  father's 
money,  and  that  single  numbers  now  sold  for 


288  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

ten  or  fifteen  pounds.  He  was  amused  at  my 
wrath  over  some  changes  which  he  had  made 
in  later  editions  of  those  very  poems,  and  readily 
admitted,  on  my  suggesting  it,  that  they  were 
merely  a  concession  to  obtuse  readers  ;  he  pro 
mised,  indeed,  to  alter  some  of  the  verses  back 
again,  but  —  as  is  the  wont  of  poets  —  failed  to 
do  so.  I  was  especially  struck  with  the  way 
in  which  he  spoke  about  his  son,  whose  career 
as  an  artist  had  well  begun,  he  said  ;  but  it  was 
an  obstacle  that  people  expected  too  much  of 
him,  as  having  had  such  a  remarkable  mother. 
It  was  told  in  the  simplest  way,  as  if  there 
were  nothing  on  the  paternal  side  worth  con 
sidering. 

The  most  attractive  literary  headquarters  in 
London,  in  those  days,  was,  of  course,  the 
Athenaeum  Club.  It  used  to  be  said  that  no 
man  could  have  any  question  to  ask  which  he 
could  not  find  somebody  to  answer  the  same 
afternoon  between  five  and  six  o'clock,  at  that 
Club.  The  Savile  Club  and  Cosmopolitan 
Club  were  also  attractive.  The  most  agreea 
ble  private  receptions  of  poets  and  artists  were 
then  to  be  found,  I  think,  at  the  house  of 
William  Rossetti,  where  one  not  merely  had 
the  associations  and  atmosphere  of  a  brilliant 
family,  —  which  had  already  lost,  however,  its 
most  gifted  member,  —  but  also  encountered 


LITERARY   LONDON  289 

the  younger  set  of  writers,  who  were  all  pre- 
raphaelites  in  art,  and  who  read  Morris,  Swin 
burne,  and  for  a  time,  at  least,  Whitman  and 
even  Joaquin  Miller.  There  one  met  Mrs.  Ros- 
setti,  who  was  the  daughter  of  Madox  Brown, 
and  herself  an  artist ;  also  Alma  Tadema,  just 
returned  from  his  wedding  journey  to  Italy 
with  his  beautiful  wife.  One  found  there  men 
and  women  then  coming  forward  into  litera 
ture,  but  now  much  better  known,  —  Edmund 
Gosse,  Arthur  O'Shaughnessy,  Cayley,  the 
translator  of  Dante,  and  Miss  Robinson,  now 
Madame  Darmesteter.  Sometimes  I  went  to 
the  receptions  of  our  fellow  countrywoman, 
Mrs.  Moulton,  then  just  beginning,  but  already 
promising  the  flattering  success  they  have 
since  attained.  Once  I  dined  with  Professor 
Tyndall  at  the  Royal  Society,  where  I  saw  men 
whose  names  had  long  been  familiar  in  the 
world  of  science,  and  found  myself  sitting  next 
to  a  man  of  the  most  eccentric  manners,  who 
turned  out  to  be  Lord  Lyttelton,  well  known  to 
me  by  name  as  the  Latin  translator  of  Lord 
Houghton's  poems.  I  amazed  him,  I  remem 
ber,  by  repeating  the  opening  verses  of  one  of 
his  translations. 

I  met  Du  Maurier  once  at  a  dinner  party, 
before  he  had  added  literary  to  artistic  suc 
cesses.  Some  one  had  told  me  that  he  was 


290  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

probably  the  most  bored  man  in  London,  din 
ing  out  daily,  and  being  tired  to  death  of  it. 
This  I  could  easily  believe  when  I  glanced  at 
him,  after  the  ladies  had  retired,  lounging  back 
in  his  chair  with  his  hands  in  his  pockets,  and 
looking  as  if  the  one  favor  he  besought  of 
everybody  was  to  let  him  alone.  This  mute 
defiance  was  rather  stimulating,  and  as  he  sat 
next  to  me  I  was  moved  to  disregard  the  im 
plied  prohibition  ;  for  after  all,  one  does  not  go 
to  a  dinner  party  in  order  to  achieve  silence ; 
one  can  do  that  at  home.  I  ventured,  there 
fore,  to  put  to  him  the  bold  question  how  he 
could  justify  himself  in  representing  the  Eng 
lish  people  as  so  much  handsomer  than  they 
or  any  other  modern  race — as  I  considerately 
added  —  really  are.  This  roused  him,  as  was 
intended  ;  he  took  my  remark  very  good-hu- 
moredly,  and  pleaded  guilty  at  once,  but  said 
that  he  pursued  this  course  because  it  was  much 
pleasanter  to  draw  beauty  than  ugliness,  and, 
moreover,  because  it  paid  better.  "There  is 
Keene,"  said  he,  "who  is  one  of  the  greatest 
artists  now  living,  but  people  do  not  like  his 
pictures  so  well  as  mine,  because  he  paints 
people  as  they  really  are."  I  then  asked  him 
where  he  got  the  situations  and  mottoes  for 
his  charming  pictures  of  children  in  the  Lon 
don  parks.  He  had  an  especial  group,  about 


LITERARY   LONDON  291 

that  time,  who  were  always  walking  with  a 
great  dog  and  making  delightful  childish  ob 
servations.  He  replied  that  his  own  children 
provided  him  with  clever  sayings  for  some  time  ; 
and  now  that  they  had  grown  too  old  to  utter 
them,  his  friends  kept  him  supplied  from  their 
nurseries.  I  told  him  that  he  might  imitate  a 
lady  I  once  knew  in  America,  who,  when  her 
children  were  invited  to  any  neighboring  house 
to  play,  used  to  send  by  the  maid  who  accom 
panied  them  a  notebook  and  pencil,  with  the 
request  that  the  lady  of  the  house  would  jot 
down  anything  remarkable  which  they  might 
say  during  the  afternoon.  He  seemed  amused 
at  this  ;  and  a  month  or  two  later,  when  I  took 
up  a  new  London  "  Punch  "  at  Zermatt,  I  found 
my  veritable  tale  worked  up  into  a  picture :  a 
fat,  pudgy  little  mother  handing  a  notebook 
to  a  rather  stately  and  defiant  young  govern 
ess;  while  the  children  clustering  round,  and 
all  looking  just  like  the  mother,  suggested  to 
the  observer  a  doubt  whether  their  combined 
intellects  could  furnish  one  line  for  the  record 
It  was  my  scene,  though  with  a  distinct  im 
provement  ;  and  this  was  my  first  and  only 
appearance,  even  by  deputy,  in  the  pages  of 
"Punch." 

It  was  in  1872,  on  my  first  visit  to  England, 
that  I  saw  Tennyson.     That  visit  was  a  very 


292  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

brief  one,  and  it  curiously  happened  that  in  the 
choice  which  often  forces  itself  upon  the  hur 
ried  traveler,  between  meeting  a  great  man 
and  seeing  an  historic  building,  I  was  compelled 
to  sacrifice  Salisbury  Cathedral  to  this  poet, 
as  I  had  previously  given  up  York  Minster 
for  Darwin.  Both  sacrifices  were  made  on 
the  deliberate  ground,  which  years  have  vindi 
cated,  that  the  building  would  probably  last  for 
my  lifetime,  while  the  man  might  not.  I  had 
brought  no  letter  to  Tennyson,  and  indeed  my 
friend  James  T.  Fields  had  volunteered  a  refusal 
of  any,  so  strong  was  the  impression  that  the 
poet  disliked  to  be  bored  by  Americans  ;  but 
when  two  ladies  whom  I  had  met  in  London, 
Lady  Pollock  and  Miss  Anne  Thackeray,  — 
afterwards  Mrs.  Ritchie,  —  had  kindly  offered 
to  introduce  me,  and  to  write  in  advance  that 
I  was  coming,  it  was  not  in  human  nature,  at 
least  in  American  nature,  to  decline.  I  spent 
the  night  at  Cowes,  and  was  driven  eight  miles 
from  the  hotel  to  Farringford  by  a  very  intel 
ligent  young  groom  who  had  never  heard  of 
the  poet ;  and  when  we  reached  the  door  of 
the  house,  the  place  before  me  seemed  such  a 
haven  of  peace  and  retirement  that  I  actually 
shrank  from  disturbing  those  who  dwelt  therein. 
I  even  found  myself  recalling  a  tale  of  Tenny 
son  and  his  wife,  who  were  sitting  beneath  a 


LITERARY   LONDON  293 

tree  and  talking  unreservedly,  when  they  dis 
covered,  by  a  rustling  in  the  boughs  overhead, 
that  two  New  York  reporters  had  taken  posi 
tion  in  the  branches  and  were  putting  down 
the  conversation.  Fortunately,  I  saw  on  the 
drawing-room  table  an  open  letter  from  one 
of  the  ladies  just  mentioned,  announcing  my 
approach,  and  it  lay  near  a  window,  through 
which,  as  I  had  been  told,  the  master  of  the 
house  did  not  hesitate  to  climb,  by  way  of  es 
cape  from  any  unwelcome  visitor. 

I  therefore  sent  up  my  name.  Presently  I 
heard  a  rather  heavy  step  in  the  adjoining 
room,  and  there  stood  in  the  doorway  the 
most  un-English  looking  man  I  had  yet  seen. 
He  was  tall  and  high-shouldered,  careless  in 
dress,  and  while  he  had  a  high  and  domed 
forehead,  yet  his  brilliant  eyes  and  tangled 
hair  and  beard  gave  him  rather  the  air  of  a  par 
tially  reformed  Corsican  bandit,  or  else  an  im 
perfectly  secularized  Carmelite  monk,  than  of 
a  decorous  and  well-groomed  Englishman.  He 
greeted  me  shyly,  gave  me  his  hand,  which 
was  in  those  days  a  good  deal  for  an  English 
man,  and  then  sidled  up  to  the  mantelpiece, 
leaned  on  it,  and  said,  with  the  air  of  a  vexed 
schoolboy,  "  I  am  rather  afraid  of  you  Ameri 
cans  ;  your  countrymen  do  not  treat  me  very 
well.  There  was  Bayard  Taylor  "  —  and  then 


294  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

he  went  into  a  long  narration  of  some  griev 
ance  incurred  through  an  indiscreet  letter  of 
that  well-known  journalist.  Strange  to  say, 
the  effect  of  this  curious  attack  was  to  put 
me  perfectly  at  my  ease.  It  was  as  if  I  had 
visited  Shakespeare,  and  had  found  him  in  a 
pet  because  some  one  of  my  fellow  countrymen 
had  spelled  his  name  wrong.  I  knew  myself 
to  be  wholly  innocent  and  to  have  no  journal 
istic  designs,  nor  did  I  ever  during  Tennyson's 
lifetime  describe  the  interview.  He  perhaps 
recognized  my  good  intentions,  and  took  me 
to  his  study,  then  to  his  garden,  where  the 
roses  were  advanced  beyond  any  I  had  yet  seen 
in  England.  I  was  struck,  in  his  conversa 
tion,  with  that  accuracy  of  outdoor  knowledge 
which  one  sees  in  his  poems  ;  he  pointed  out, 
for  instance,  which  ferns  were  American,  and 
which  had  been  attempted  in  this  country,  but 
had  refused  to  grow.  He  talked  freely  about 
his  own  books,  and  it  seemed  to  me  that  he 
must  be  like  Wordsworth,  as  we  find  him  in 
the  descriptions  of  contemporaries,  —  a  little 
too  isolated  in  his  daily  life,  and  too  much 
absorbed  in  the  creations  of  his  own  fancy. 
Lord  Houghton,  his  lifelong  friend,  said  to  me 
afterwards,  "Tennyson  likes  unmixed  flattery." 
This  I  should  not  venture  to  say,  but  I  noticed 
that  when  he  was  speaking  of  other  men,  he 


LITERARY   LONDON  295 

mentioned  as  an  important  trait  in  their  char 
acter  whether  they  liked  his  poems  or  not,  — 
Lowell,  he  evidently  thought,  did  not.  Perhaps 
this  is  a  habit  of  all  authors,  and  it  was  only 
that  Tennyson  spoke  out,  like  a  child,  what 
others  might  have  concealed. 

He  soon  offered,  to  my  great  delight,  to 
take  me  to  the  house  of  Mrs.  Cameron,  the 
celebrated  amateur  photographer,  who  lived 
close  by.  We  at  once  came  upon  Mr.  Cameron 
—  a  very  picturesque  figure,  having  fine  white 
hair  and  beard,  and  wearing  a  dressing-gown 
of  pale  blue  with  large  black  velvet  buttons, 
and  a  heavy  gold  chain.  I  had  heard  it  said 
that  Mrs.  Cameron  selected  her  housemaids 
for  their  profiles,  that  she  might  use  them 
for  saints  and  madonnas  in  her  photographic 
groups  ;  and  it  turned  out  that  all  these  dam 
sels  were  upstairs,  watching  round  the  sick 
bed  of  the  youngest,  who  was  a  great  favorite 
in  the  Tennyson  family.  We  were  ushered 
into  the  chamber,  where  a  beautiful  child  lay 
unconscious  upon  the  bed,  with  weeping  girls 
around ;  and  I  shall  never  forget  the  scene 
when  Tennyson  bent  over  the  pillow,  with  his 
sombre  Italian  look,  and  laid  his  hand  on  the 
unconscious  forehead ;  it  was  like  a  picture  by 
Ribera  or  Zamacois.  The  child,  as  I  after 
wards  heard,  never  recovered  consciousness, 


296  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

and  died  within  a  few  days.  Presently  Mrs. 
Cameron  led  us  downstairs  again,  and  opened 
chests  of  photographs  for  me  to  choose  among. 
I  chose  one,  The  Two  Angels  at  the  Sep 
ulchre,  for  which  one  of  the  maid  servants 
had  stood  as  a  model ;  another  of  Tennyson's 
Eleanore,  for  which  Mrs.  Stillman  (Miss  Spar- 
talis)  had  posed  ;  and  three  large  photographs 
of  Darwin,  Carlyle,  and  Tennyson  himself,  — 
the  last  of  these  being  one  which  he  had  chris 
tened  The  Dirty  Monk,  and  of  which  he  wrote, 
at  Mrs.  Cameron's  request,  in  my  presence, 
a  certificate  that  it  was  the  best  likeness  ever 
taken  of  him.  I  have  always  felt  glad  to  have 
seen  Tennyson  not  merely  in  contact  with  a 
stranger  like  myself,  but  as  he  appeared  among 
these  friendly  people,  and  under  the  influence 
of  a  real  emotion  of  sympathy,  showing  the 
deeper  nature  of  the  man. 

No  one  knows  better  than  myself  how  slight 
and  fragmentary  are  the  recollections  here  re 
corded,  yet  even  such  glimpses  occasionally 
suggest  some  aspect  of  character  which  formal 
biographers  have  missed.  A  clever  woman 
once  said  to  me  that  she  did  not  know  which 
really  gave  the  more  knowledge  of  a  noted 
person,  —  to  have  read  all  he  had  written  and 
watched  all  he  had  done,  or,  on  the  other  hand, 


LITERARY   LONDON  297 

to  have  taken  one  moment's  glance  at  his  face. 
As  we  grow  older,  we  rely  more  and  more  on 
this  first  glance.  I  never  felt  for  an  instant 
that  I  had  really  encountered  in  England  men 
of  greater  calibre  than  I  had  met  before,  —  for 
was  I  not  the  fellow  countryman  of  Emerson 
and  Hawthorne,  of  Webster  and  Phillips  ?  — 
yet,  after  all,  the  ocean  lends  a  glamour  to  the 
unseen  world  beyond  it,  and  I  was  glad  to  have 
had  a  sight  of  that  world,  also.  I  was  kindly 
dismissed  from  it,  after  my  first  brief  visit,  by  a 
reception  given  me  at  the  rooms  of  the  Anglo- 
American  Club,  where  Thomas  Hughes  — 
whom  I  had  first  known  at  Newport,  Rhode 
Island  —  presided,  and  where  Lord  Houghton 
moved  some  too  flattering  resolutions,  which 
were  seconded  by  the  present  Sir  Frederick 
Pollock.  Returning  to  my  American  home,  I 
read,  after  a  few  days,  in  the  local  newspaper 
(the  "  Newport  Mercury  "),  that  I  was  reported 
to  have  enjoyed  myself  greatly  in  England,  and 
to  have  been  kindly  received,  "  especially  among 
servants  and  rascals."  An  investigation  by 
the  indignant  editor  revealed  the  fact  that  the 
scrap  had  been  copied  from  another  news 
paper  ;  and  that  a  felicitous  misprint  had  sub 
stituted  the  offending  words  for  the  original 
designation  of  my  English  friends  as  "  savants 
and  radicals." 


LITERARY    PARIS   TWENTY    YEARS    AGO 

I  REACHED  Paris,  from  London,  on  the  morn 
ing  of  May  30,  1878,  arriving  just  in  time  for 
admission  to  the  Theatre  des  Folies  Drama- 
tiques,  where  the  Voltaire  centenary  celebration 
was  to  be  held  that  day,  with  Victor  Hugo  for 
the  orator.  As  I  drove  up,  the  surrounding 
streets  were  full  of  people  going  toward  the 
theatre ;  while  the  other  streets  were  so  empty 
as  to  recall  that  fine  passage  in  Landor's  "  Im 
aginary  Conversations "  where  Demosthenes 
describes  the  depopulation  of  all  other  spots 
in  Athens  except  that  where  he  is  speaking  to 
the  people.  The  neighborhood  of  the  theatre 
was  placarded  with  announcements  stating  that 
every  seat  was  sold  ;  and  it  was  not  until  I  had 
explained  to  a  policeman  that  I  was  an  Ameri 
can  who  had  crossed  from  London  expressly 
for  this  celebration,  that  he  left  his  post  and 
hunted  up  a  speculator  from  whom  I  could 
buy  seats.  They  were  twin  seats,  which  I 
shared  with  a  young  Frenchman,  who  led  me  in 
through  a  crowd  so  great  that  the  old  women 


LITERARY   PARIS  299 

who,  in  Parisian  theatres,  guide  you  to  your 
place  and  take  your  umbrella,  found  their  oc 
cupation  almost  gone. 

It  was  my  first  experience  of  French  public 
oratory  ;  and  while  I  was  aware  of  the  resources 
of  the  language  and  the  sympathetic  power  of 
the  race,  I  was  not  prepared  to  see  these  so 
superbly  conspicuous  in  public  meetings.  The 
ordinary  appreciation  of  eloquence  among  the 
French  seemed  pitched  in  the  key  of  our  great 
est  enthusiasm,  with  the  difference  that  their 
applause  was  given  to  the  form  as  well  as  to 
the  substance,  and  was  given  with  the  hands 
only,  never  with  the  feet.  Even  in  its  aspect 
the  audience  was  the  most  noticeable  I  ever 
saw:  the  platform  and  the  five  galleries  were 
filled  almost  wholly  with  men,  and  these  of 
singularly  thoughtful  and  distinguished  bear 
ing,  —  an  assembly  certainly  superior  to  Parlia 
ment  or  Congress  in  its  look  of  intellect.  A 
very  few  were  in  the  blouse  of  the  ouvrier,  and 
there  was  all  over  the  house  an  amount  of  talk 
ing  that  sounded  like  vehement  quarreling, 
though  it  was  merely  good  -  natured  chatter. 
There  were  only  French  people  and  French 
words  around  me,  and  though  my  immediate 
companion  was  from  the  provinces  and  knew 
nobody,  yet  there  was  on  the  other  side  a  very 
handsome  man,  full  of  zeal  and  replete  with 


300  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

information.  When  I  asked  him  whether  Vic 
tor  Hugo  was  yet  upon  the  platform,  he  smiled, 
and  said  that  I  would  not  ask  such  a  question 
if  I  knew  the  shout  that  would  go  up  from  the 
crowd  when  he  came  in. 

Applaud  they  certainly  did  when  a  white  head 
was  seen  advancing  through  the  throng  upon 
the  stage;  and  the  five  galleries  and  the  par 
quet  seemed  to  rock  with  excitement  as  he  took 
his  seat.  I  should  have  known  Victor  Hugo 
anywhere  from  the  resemblance  to  his  pictures, 
except  that  his  hair  and  beard,  cropped  short, 
were  not  quite  so  rough  and  hirsute  as  they  are 
often  depicted.  He  bowed  his  strong  leonine 
head  to  the  audience,  and  then  seated  himself, 
the  two  other  speakers  sitting  on  either  side  of 
him ;  while  the  bust  of  the  smiling  Voltaire  with 
a  wreath  of  laurel  and  flowers  rose  behind  and 
above  their  heads.  The  bust  was  imposing,  and 
the  smile  was  kindly  and  genial,  —  a  smile  such 
as  one  seldom  sees  attributed  to  Voltaire.  The 
first  speaker,  M.  Spuller,  was  a  fine-looking  man, 
large,  fair,  and  of  rather  English  bearing ;  he 
rested  one  hand  on  the  table,  and  made  the 
other  hand  do  duty  for  two,  and  I  might  almost 
say  for  a  dozen,  after  the  manner  of  his  race. 
Speaking  without  notes,  he  explained  the  plan  of 
the  celebration,  and  did  it  so  well  that  sentence 
after  sentence  was  received  with  "  Bravo ! " 


LITERARY   PARIS  301 

or  "Admirable!"  or  "Oh-h-h!"  in  a  sort  of 
profound  literary  enjoyment. 

These  plaudits  were  greater  still  in  case  of 
the  next  speaker,  M.  Emile  Deschanel,  the  author 
of  a  book  on  Aristophanes,  and  well  known  as 
a  politician.  He  also  was  a  large  man  of  dis 
tinguished  bearing.  In  his  speech  he  drew  a 
parallel  between  the  careers  of  Victor  Hugo  and 
Voltaire,  but  dwelt  especially  upon  that  of  the 
latter.  One  of  the  most  skillful  portions  of  the 
address  touched  on  that  dangerous  ground,  Vol 
taire's  outrageous  poem  of  "La  Pucelle,"  founded 
on  the  career  of  Jeanne  d'Arc.  M.  Deschanel 
claimed  that  Voltaire  had  at  least  set  her  be 
fore  the  world  as  the  saviour  of  France.  He 
admitted  that  the  book  bore  the  marks  of  the 
period,  that  it  was  licencieux  et  coupable ;  yet  he 
retorted  fiercely  on  the  clerical  party  for  their 
efforts  to  protest  against  Voltaire  on  this  ac 
count.  When  he  said,  at  last,  with  a  sudden 
flash  of  parting  contempt,  "Who  was  it  that 
burned  her  ? "  (Qui  est-ce  qui  1'a  brule"e  ?)  he 
dismissed  the  clergy  and  the  subject  with  a 
wave  of  the  hand  that  was  like  the  flashing  of 
the  scimitar  of  Saladin.  Then  followed  a  per 
fect  tempest  of  applause,  and  Victor  Hugo  took 
the  stage. 

His  oration  on  Voltaire  —  since  translated  by 
Mr.  James  Part  on  —  was  delivered  from  notes, 


302  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

written  in  an  immense  hand  on  sheets  twice  a$ 
large  as  any  foolscap  paper  I  had  ever  seen ; 
and  he  read  from  these  without  glasses.  He 
was  at  this  time  seventy-six,  but  looked  ten 
years  younger.  He  stood  behind  two  great 
sconces,  each  holding  six  candles  ;  above  these 
appeared  his  strong  white-bearded  face,  and 
above  him  rose  Voltaire  and  his  laurel  wreath. 
He  used  much  gesture,  and  in  impassioned  mo 
ments  waved  his  arm  above  his  head,  the  fingers 
apart  and  trembling  with  emotion.  Sometimes 
he  clapped  one  hand  to  his  head  as  if  to  tear 
out  some  of  his  white  hairs,  though  this  hardly 
seemed,  at  the  moment,  melodramatic.  His 
voice  was  vigorous,  and  yet  from  some  defect  of 
utterance,  I  lost  more  of  what  he  said  than  in 
case  of  the  other  speakers.  Others  around  me 
made  the  same  complaint.  His  delivery,  how 
ever,  was  as  characteristic  as  his  literary  style, 
and  quite  in  keeping  with  it,  being  a  series  of 
brilliant  detached  points.  It  must  be  a  stimulat 
ing  thing,  indeed,  to  speak  to  a  French  audience, 
— to  men  who  give  sighs  of  delight  over  a  fine 
phrase,  and  shouts  of  enthusiasm  over  a  great 
thought.  The  most  striking  part  of  Hugo's  ad 
dress,  to  my  mind,  was  his  defense  of  the  smile 
of  Voltaire,  and  his  turning  of  the  enthusiasm 
for  the  pending  Exposition  into  an  appeal  for 
international  peace.  Never  was  there  a  more 


LITERARY  PARIS  303 

powerful  picture  than  his  sketch  of  "  that  terrific 
International  Exposition  called  a  field  of  battle." 
After  the  address  the  meeting  ended,  —  there 
was  no  music,  which  surprised  me,  —  and  every 
one  on  the  platform  rushed  headlong  at  Victor 
Hugo.  Never  before  had  I  quite  comprehended 
the  French  effervescence  as  seen  in  the  Chambre 
des  De'pute's;  but  here  it  did  not  seem  child 
ish, —  only  natural ;  as  where  Deschanel,  during 
his  own  speech,  had  once  turned  and  taken 
Victor  Hugo's  hand  and  clapped  him  caress 
ingly  on  the  shoulder.  The  crowd  dispersed 
more  easily  than  I  expected ;  for  I  had  said  to 
my  French  neighbor  that  there  would  be  little 
chance  for  us  in  case  of  a  fire,  and  he  had 
shrugged  his  shoulders,  looked  up  to  heaven, 
and  said,  "Adieu  ! "  I  went  out  through  a  side 
entrance,  where  Hugo  was  just  before  me  :  it 
was  hardly  possible  to  get  him  into  his  carriage ; 
the  surrounding  windows  were  crammed  with 
people,  and  he  drove  away  amid  shouts.  There 
was  a  larger  and  more  popular  demonstration 
that  day  at  the  Cirque  Ame"ricain ;  but  the  elo 
quence  was  with  us.  To  add  to  the  general  pic- 
turesqueness  it  was  Ascension  Day,  and  occa 
sionally  one  met  groups  of  little  white-robed 
girls,  who  were  still  being  trained,  perhaps,  to 
shudder  at  the  very  name  of  Voltaire,  or  even  of 
Victor  Hugo. 


304  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

I  dined  one  day  with  M.  Talandier,  a  member 
of  the  "Extreme  Left"  in  the  Chambre  des 
De'pute's,  —  a  gentleman  to  whom  my  friend 
Conway  had  introduced  me,  they  having  become 
acquainted  during  our  host's  long  exile  in  Eng 
land.  Louis  Blanc,  the  historian,  was  present, 
with  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Conway  and  a  few  French 
men  who  spoke  no  English ;  and  as  there  was 
also  a  pretty  young  girl  who  had  been  born  in 
England  of  French  parents,  there  was  some  con 
fusion  of  tongues,  though  the  Talandier  family 
and  Louis  Blanc  were  at  home  in  both  lan 
guages.  I  was  delighted  to  meet  this  last- 
named  man,  whose  career  had  been  familiar  to 
me  since  the  revolution  of  1848.  He  was  very 
short,  yet  square  in  person,  and  not  insignifi 
cant  ;  his  French  was  clear  and  unusually  de 
liberate,  and  I  never  missed  a  word,  even  when 
he  was  not  addressing  me.  His  small  size  and 
endless  vivacity  made  him  look  like  a  French 
Tom  Moore.  He  told  many  stories  about  the 
revolution,  —  one  of  an  occasion  where  flags 
were  to  be  presented  by  the  provincial  govern 
ment  to  the  regiments,  and  he  was  assigned  to 
the  very  tallest  colonel,  a  giant  in  size,  who  at 
once  lifted  Louis  Blanc  in  his  arms  and  hugged 
him  to  his  breast.  The  narrator  acted  this 
all  out  inimitably,  and  told  other  stories,  at  one 
of  which  Carlyle  had  once  laughed  so  that  he 


LITERARY   PARIS  305 

threw  himself  down  and  rolled  on  the  floor,  and 
Louis  Blanc  very  nearly  acted  this  out,  also. 

He  seemed  wonderfully  gentle  and  sweet  for 
one  who  had  lived  through  so  much ;  and  con 
firmed,  without  bitterness,  the  report  I  had 
heard  that  he  had  never  fully  believed  in  the 
National  Workshops,  which  failed  under  his 
charge  in  1 848,  but  that  they  were  put  into  his 
hands  by  a  rival  who  wished  them  and  him  to 
fail.  Everything  at  the  meal  was  simple,  as 
our  hosts  lived  in  honorable  poverty  after  their 
exile.  We  sat  at  table  for  a  while  after  din 
ner,  and  then  both  sexes  withdrew  together. 
Through  the  open  windows  we  heard  the  music 
from  a  students'  dance-garden  below,  and  could 
catch  a  glimpse  of  young  girls,  dressed  mod 
estly  enough,  and  of  their  partners,  dancing  with 
that  wonderful  grace  and  agility  which  is  pos 
sible  only  to  young  Frenchmen.  All  spheres 
of  French  life  intermingle  so  closely  that  there 
seemed  nothing  really  incongruous  in  all  this 
exuberant  gayety  beneath  the  windows,  while 
the  two  veteran  radicals  —  who  had  very  likely 
taken  their  share  in  such  amusements  while 
young  —  were  fighting  over  again  their  battles 
of  reform.  Both  now  have  passed  away.  Louis 
Blanc's  "Ten  Years"  still  finds  readers,  and 
some  may  remember  the  political  papers  written 
a  few  years  later  by  Talandier  for  the  "  Inter 
national  Review,"  published  in  Boston. 


306  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

By  invitation  of  M.  Talandier  I  spent  a  day 
(June  3)  at  Versailles,  where  the  Chambre  des 
De'pute's  was  then  sitting,  and  discovered  in  the 
anteroom,  or  salle  d'attente,  that,  by  a  curious 
rule,  foreigners  were  excluded  until  four  P.  M.  ; 
yet  the  name  of  my  host  brought  me  in  after  a 
little  delay.  The  hall  was  full  of  people  wait 
ing,  each  having  to  send  his  card  to  some  mem 
ber,  naming  on  it  the  precise  hour  of  arrival. 
The  member  usually  appeared  promptly,  when 
an  immense  usher  called  in  a  stentorian  voice 
for  "la  personne  qui  a  fait  demander  M.  Con 
stant  "  —  or  whosoever  it  might  be.  Then  the 
constituent  —  for  such  it  commonly  was  —  ad 
vanced  toward  the  smiling  member,  who  never 
looked  bored;  the  mask  of  hospitality  being 
probably  the  same,  in  this  respect,  through 
out  the  legislative  halls  of  the  world.  At  last 
M.  Talandier  appeared,  and  found  me  a  place 
among  the  Corps  Diplomatique.  The  Cham 
ber  itself  was  more  like  the  House  of  Repre 
sentatives  at  Washington  than  like  the  House 
of  Commons;  the  members  had  little  locked 
desks,  and  some  were  writing  letters,  like  our 
Representatives,  though  I  saw  no  newspapers. 
The  ordinary  amount  of  noise  was  like  that  in 
our  Congress,  though  there  was,  happily,  no 
clapping  of  hands  for  pages ;  but  when  the 
members  became  especially  excited,  which  in- 


LITERARY   PARIS  307 

deed  happened  very  often,  it  was  like  a  cage 
of  lions.  For  instance,  I  entered  just  as  some 
body  had  questioned  the  minister  of  war,  Gen 
eral  Borel,  about  an  alleged  interference  with 
elections ;  and  his  defiant  reply  had  enraged 
the  "  Lefts,"  or  radicals,  who  constituted  the 
majority  of  the  assembly.  They  shouted  and 
gesticulated,  throwing  up  their  hands  and  then 
slapping  them  on  their  knees  very  angrily,  until 
the  president  rang  his  great  bell,  and  they  qui 
eted  down,  lest  he  might  put  on  his  hat  and 
adjourn  the  meeting.  In  each  case  the  mem 
ber  speaking  took  his  stand  in  the  desk,  or  tri 
bune,  below  the  president ;  and  the  speeches 
were  sometimes  read,  sometimes  given  without 
notes.  The  war  minister,  a  stout,  red-faced  man, 
—  always,  the  radicals  said,  half  intoxicated,  — 
stood  with  folded  arms,  and  looked  ready  for  a 
coup  d  'etat ;  yet  I  heard  it  said  about  me  that 
he  would  be  compelled  either  to  retreat  or  to 
resign.  One  saw  at  a  glance  how  much  pro- 
founder  political  differences  must  be  in  France 
than  with  us,  since  in  that  country  they  avow 
edly  concern  the  very  existence  of  the  republic. 
I  saw  no  women  at  the  Chambre  des  De"pute"s, 
even  as  spectators,  though  they  may  have  been 
concealed  somewhere,  as  in  the  Ladies'  Gallery 
of  the  House  of  Commons.  An  American  was 
surprised,  twenty  years  ago,  with  all  the  asso- 


308  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

ciations  of  the  French  revolutions  in  his  mind, 
to  see  in  Paris  so  much  less  exhibition  of  inter 
est  in  public  affairs,  or  indeed  of  general  know 
ledge,  on  the  part  of  women  than  among  men. 
For  instance,  on  my  going  one  day  into  a  crt- 
merie  in  a  distant  part  of  Paris,  and  partaking 
of  a  bowl  of  bouillon  bourgeois  at  twenty-five 
centimes  (five  cents),  the  woman  in  charge  was 
interested  to  hear  that  I  was  from  America,  and 
asked  if  they  spoke  German  there.  Her  hus 
band  laughed  at  her  ignorance,  and  said  that 
America  was  discovered  by  Christophe  Colon ; 
going  on  to  give  a  graphic  and  correct  account 
of  the  early  struggles  of  Columbus,  of  his  voy 
age  and  his  discouragement,  of  the  mutiny  of 
his  men,  of  his  seeing  the  light  on  the  shore,  and 
so  on.  Then  he  talked  about  Spain,  the  Italian 
republic,  and  other  matters,  saying  that  he  had 
read  it  all  in  the  school-books  of  the  children 
and  in  other  books.  It  was  delightful  to  find 
a  plain  Frenchman  in  a  blouse  who,  although 
coarse  and  rough-looking,  could  talk  so  intelli 
gently  ;  and  his  manners  also  had  perfect  cour 
tesy.  I  could  not  but  contrast  him  with  the 
refined  Italian  youth  who  once  asked  a  friend 
of  mine  in  Florence  what  became  of  that  young 
Genoese  who  sailed  westward  in  1492  to  dis 
cover  a  new  continent,  and  whether  he  had 
ever  been  heard  of  again. 


LITERARY   PARIS  309 

On  another  day  I  dined  with  Louis  Blanc  in 
bachelor  quarters,  with  the  Talandiers,  Con- 
ways,  and  one  or  two  others.  He  was  less  gay 
than  before,  yet  talked  much  of  the  condition 
and  prospect  of  affairs.  France,  he  said,  was 
not  a  real  republic,  but  a  nominal  one ;  having 
monarchical  institutions  and  traditions,  with  a 
constitution  well  framed  to  make  them  per 
petual.  All  the  guests  at  his  house  seemed 
alike  anxious  for  the  future.  The  minister  of 
war,  whom  I  had  heard  virtually  defying  the 
people  a  few  days  before,  was  so  well  en 
trenched  in  power,  they  said,  as  to  be  practi 
cally  beyond  reach ;  and  though  the  republi 
cans  controlled  the  Chambre  des  Deputes,  that 
was  all,  for  the  three  other  parties  hated  the 
republic  more  than  one  another.  I  asked  Louis 
Blanc  about  Lamartine,  whom  he  thought  not 
a  great  man,  and  even  injurious  to  the  republic 
through  his  deference  to  the  bourgeoisie.  He 
described  the  famous  speech  in  which  Lamar 
tine  insisted  on  the  tricolored  flag  instead  of 
the  red  flag,  and  said  it  was  quite  wrong  and 
ridiculous.  The  red  flag  did  not  mean  blood 
at  all,  but  order  and  unity,  —  it  was  the  old 
oriflamme,  the  flag  of  Jeanne  d'Arc.  The  tri 
color  had  represented  the  three  orders  of  the 
state,  which  were  united  into  one  by  the  revo 
lution  of  1848,  so  that  the  symbol  was  now 


310  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

meaningless  ;  and  the  demand  for  the  red  flag 
was  resisted  only  by  the  bourgeoisie.  The  red 
flag,  moreover,  had  always  been  the  summons 
to  order,  —  when  it  was  raised  a  mob  had  notice 
to  disperse  (as  on  the  reading  of  the  riot  act) ; 
and  it  was  absurd  in  Lamartine  to  represent  it 
to  the  contrary,  —  he  knew  better.  The  other 
gentlemen  all  agreed  with  this,  and  with  the 
estimate  of  Lamartine.  After  dinner  M.  Talan- 
dier  played  for  us  on  the  piano  the  Marseillaise, 
which  is  always  thrilling,  and  then  the  Carma 
gnole,  which  is  as  formidable  and  dolorous  as  the 
guillotine  itself.  It  was  strange,  in  view  of  this 
beautiful  city,  constantly  made  more  beautiful 
by  opening  new  great  avenues,  some  not  yet 
finished,  to  recall  these  memories  of  all  it  had 
been  through,  and  to  see  those  who  had  been 
actors  in  its  past  scenes. 

On  leaving  home  I  had  been  appointed  a  dele 
gate  to  the  Prison  Discipline  Congress,  to  be 
held  that  year  at  Stockholm ;  and  though  I 
never  got  so  far,  I  attended  several  preliminary 
meetings  of  delegates  in  London  and  Paris,  and 
was  especially  pleased,  in  the  latter  place,  to 
see  the  high  deference  yielded  by  French  ex 
perts  to  our  American  leader,  the  late  Dr.  E.  C. 
Wines,  and  also  the  familiar  knowledge  shown 
by  these  gentlemen  in  regard  to  American 
methods  and  experiments.  Less  satisfactory 


LITERARY   PARIS  311 

was  our  national  showing  at  another  assem 
blage,  where  we  should  have  been  represented 
by  a  far  larger  and  abler  body  of  delegates. 
This  was  the  Association  LitteVaire  Interna 
tionale,  which  was  appointed  to  assemble  under 
the  presidency  of  Victor  Hugo,  on  June  u.  I 
had  gone  to  a  few  of  the  committee  meetings  at 
the  rooms  of  the  Socie'te'  des  Gens  de  Lettres, 
and,  after  my  wonted  fashion,  had  made  an 
effort  to  have  women  admitted  to  the  Associa 
tion  LitteVaire ;  this  attempt  having  especial 
reference  to  Mrs.  Julia  Ward  Howe,  who  was 
then  in  Paris,  and  whose  unusual  command  of 
the  French  language  would  have  made  her  a 
much  better  delegate  than  most  of  the  actual 
American  representatives.  In  this  effort  I 
failed,  although  my  judgment  was  afterwards 
vindicated  when  she  gave  great  delight  by  a 
speech  in  French  at  a  women's  convention, 
where  I  heard  her  introduced  by  the  courteous 
and  delicately  articulating  chairman  as  "  Mees- 
ses  Ouardow." 

As  to  the  more  literary  gathering,  the  early 
meetings  were  as  indeterminate  and  unsatisfy 
ing  as  such  things  are  wont  to  be,  so  that  I  was 
quite  unprepared  for  the  number  and  character 
of  those  who  finally  assembled.  The  main 
meeting  was  in  some  masonic  hall,  whose  walls 
were  covered  with  emblems  and  Hebrew  in- 


3i2  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

scriptions ;  and  although  the  men  were  nearly 
all  strangers  to  me,  it  was  something  to  know 
that  they  represented  the  most  cultivated  liter 
ary  traditions  of  the  world.  When  the  roll  was 
called,  there  proved  to  be  eighty-five  Frenchmen 
present,  and  only  thirty-five  from  all  other  na 
tions  put  together ;  five  of  this  minority  being 
Americans.  I  was  the  only  one  of  these  who 
had  ever  published  a  book,  I  think.  Mr.  W.  H. 
Bishop  was  another  delegate,  but  his  first 
novel,  "Detmold,"  had  not  yet  reached  comple 
tion  in  the  "  Atlantic  ; "  while  the  three  remain 
ing  delegates  were  an  Irishman,  an  Englishman, 
and  an  American,  all  correspondents  of  Amer 
ican  newspapers,  the  last  of  them  being  the 
late  Edward  King,  since  well  known  in  liter 
ature.  It  is  proper  to  add  that  several  den 
tists,  whose  names  had  been  duly  entered  as 
delegates,  had  not  yet  arrived;  and  that  at 
later  sessions  there  appeared,  as  more  substan 
tial  literary  factors,  President  Andrew  D.  White 
and  Mr.  George  W.  Smalley.  On  that  first 
day,  however,  the  English  delegation  was  only 
a  little  more  weighty  than  ours,  including  Blan- 
chard  Jerrold  and  Tom  Taylor,  with  our  own 
well-known  fellow  countryman  "Hans  Breit- 
mann  "  (Charles  Godfrey  Leland),  who  did  not 
know  that  there  was  to  be  an  American  delega 
tion,  and  was  naturally  claimed  by  the  citizens 


LITERARY   PARIS  313 

of  both  his  homes.  Edmond  About  presided, 
a  cheery,  middle-aged  Frenchman,  short  and 
square,  with  broad  head  and  grayish  beard ;  and 
I  have  often  regretted  that  I  took  no  list  of  the 
others  of  his  nationality,  since  it  would  have 
doubtless  included  many  who  have  since  be 
come  known  to  fame.  It  is  my  impression  that 
Adolphe  Belot,  Jules  Claretie,  and  Hector  Malot 
were  there,  and  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  Max 
Nordau  also  was  present. 

The  discussions  were  in  French,  and  there 
fore  of  course  animated ;  but  they  turned  at 
first  on  unimportant  subjects,  and  the  whole 
thing  would  have  been  rather  a  disappointment 
to  me  —  since  Victor  Hugo's  opening  address 
was  to  be  postponed  —  had  it  not  been  rumored 
about  that  Tourgue"neff  was  a  delegate  to  the 
convention.  Wishing  more  to  see  him  than  to 
behold  any  living  Frenchman,  I  beg~~*  +^p.  ever 
kind  secretary,  M.  Zaccone,  to  introduce  me  to 
him  after  the  adjournment.  He  led  me  to  a 
man  of  magnificent  bearing,  who  towered  above 
all  the  Frenchmen,  and  was,  on  the  whole,  the 
noblest  and  most  attractive  literary  man  whom 
I  have  ever  encountered.  I  can  think  of  no 
better  way  to  describe  him  than  by  saying  that 
he  united  the  fine  benignant  head  of  Longfellow 
with  the  figure  of  Thackeray  ;  not  that  Tour- 
gu^neff  was  as  tall  as  the  English  novelist,  but 


314  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

he  had  as  distinctly  the  effect  of  height,  and 
afterwards,  when  he,  Leland,  and  I  stood  to 
gether,  we  were  undoubtedly  the  tallest  men 
in  the  room.  But  the  especial  characteristic 
of  Tourgue"neff  was  a  winning  sweetness  of 
manner,  which  surpassed  even  Longfellow's, 
and  impressed  one  as  being  "  kind  nature's,"  to 
adopt  Tennyson's  distinction,  and  not  merely 
those  "  next  to  best  "  manners  which  the  poet 
attributes  to  the  great. 

Tourgue'neff  greeted  us  heartily  as  Amer 
icans,  —  Mr.  Bishop  also  forming  one  of  the 
group,  —  and  spoke  warmly  of  those  of  our 
compatriots  whom  he  had  known,  as  Emma 
Lazarus  and  Professor  Boyesen.  He  seemed 
much  gratified  when  I  told  him  that  the  types 
of  reformers  in  his  latest  book,  "  Virgin  Soil," 
—  which  may  be  read  to  more  advantage  in  its 
French  form  as  "Terres  Vierges,"  —  appeared 
to  me  universal,  not  local,  and  that  I  was  con 
stantly  reminded  by  them  of  men  and  women 
whom  I  had  known  in  America.  This  pleased 
him,  he  explained,  because  the  book  had  been 
very  ill  received  in  Russia,  in  spite  of  its  having 
told  the  truth,  as  later  events  showed.  All 
this  he  said  in  English,  which  he  continued  to 
use  with  us,  although  he  did  not  speak  it  with 
entire  ease  and  correctness,  and  although  we 
begged  him  to  speak  in  French.  Afterwards, 


LITERARY   PARIS  315 

when  he  was  named  as  one  of  the  vice-presi 
dents  of  the  new  association,  the  announcement 
was  received  with  applause,  which  was  renewed 
when  he  went  upon  the  platform ;  and  it  was 
noticeable  that  no  other  man  was  so  honored. 
This  showed  his  standing  with  French  authors  ; 
but  later  I  sought  in  vain  for  his  photograph  in 
the  shops,  and  his  name  proved  wholly  unfa 
miliar.  He  was  about  to  leave  Paris,  and  I  lost 
the  opportunity  of  further  acquaintance.  Since 
then  his  fame  has  been  temporarily  obscured  by 
the  commanding  figure  of  Tolstoi,  but  I  fancy 
that  it  is  now  beginning  to  resume  its  prestige ; 
and  certainly  there  is  in  his  books  a  more  wholly 
sympathetic  quality  than  in  Tolstoi's,  with  almost 
equal  power.  In  his  "  Poems  in  Prose  "  —  little 
known  among  us,  I  fear,  in  spite  of  the  admir 
able  translation  made  by  Mrs.  Perry  —  there  is 
something  nearer  to  the  peculiar  Hawthorn- 
esque  quality  of  imagination  than  in  any  other 
book  I  know. 

As  to  the  Association  Litteraire  Interna 
tionale,  it  had  the  usual  provoking  habit  of 
French  conventions,  and  met  only  at  intervals 
of  several  days,  —  as  if  to  give  its  delegates 
plenty  of  leisure  to  see  Paris,  —  and  I  could 
attend  no  later  meeting,  although  I  was  placed 
on  the  Executive  Committee  for  America ;  but 
it  has  since  held  regular  annual  conventions  in 


316  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

different  capitals,  and  has  doubtless  helped  the 
general  agitation  for  better  copyright  laws. 

I  went  again  to  the  apartments  of  Louis  Blanc 
on  July  14,  with  a  young  American  friend,  to 
get  tickets  for  the  Rousseau  centenary,  which 
was  also  to  be,  after  the  convenient  French 
habit  of  combination,  a  celebration  of  the  cap 
ture  of  the  Bastille.  Rousseau  died  July  2, 
1778,  and  the  Bastille  was  taken  on  July  14, 
1789,  so  that  neither  date  was  strictly  centen 
nial,  but  nobody  ever  minds  that  in  Paris ;  and 
if  it  had  been  proposed  that  our  Declaration  of 
Independence  or  the  Landing  of  the  Pilgrims 
should  also  be  included  in  the  festival,  there 
would  have  been  no  trouble  in  any  mind  on  ac 
count  of  the  dates.  Committee  men  were  busy 
in  Louis  Blanc's  little  parlor,  and  this  as  noisily 
and  eagerly  as  if  the  Bastille  were  again  to  be 
taken  :  they  talked  and  gesticulated  as  only 
Latin  races  can ;  in  fact,  the  smallest  commit 
tee  meeting  in  France  is  as  full  of  excitement 
as  a  monster  convention.  It  is  a  wonder  that 
these  people  do  not  wear  themselves  out  in 
youth ;  and  yet  old  Frenchmen  have  usually 
such  an  unabated  fire  in  their  eyes,  set  off  by 
gray  hair  and  often  black  eyebrows,  that  they 
make  Anglo-Saxons  of  the  same  age  look  heavy 
and  dull  in  comparison.  French  emotion  does 
not  exhaust  itself,  but  accumulates  strength  in- 


LITERARY   PARIS  317 

definitely,  needing  only  a  touch  of  flame,  at  any 
age>  to  go  off  like  a  rocket. 

Little  Louis  Blanc  came  in  and  went  out,  in  a 
flowered  dressing-gown  ;  and  he  really  seemed, 
after  his  long  English  residence,  to  be  an  ele 
ment  of  calmness  in  the  eager  crowd.  We  ob 
tained  tickets  for  the  evening  banquet  (Bastille 
celebration)  at  three  and  a  half  francs  each,  and 
also  received  cards  for  the  afternoon  (Rousseau 
celebration)  free  and  with  reserved  seats.  To 
prepare  the  mind  for  both  occasions,  I  attended 
a  very  exclusive  and  aristocratic  mass  at  the 
Chapelle  Expiatoire,  and,  later,  went  by  omni 
bus  to  the  Cirque  Ame'ricain,  then  existing  in 
the  Place  du  Chdteau  d'Eau.  This  was  the 
place  where  the  popular  demonstration  had 
been  held  on  the  Voltaire  day ;  but  I  had  not 
seen  that,  and  it  was,  in  case  of  Rousseau,  the 
scene  of  the  only  daylight  celebration.  Crowds 
of  people  were  passing  in,  all  seemingly  French ; 
we  did  not  hear  a  syllable  of  any  other  language. 
We  were  piloted  to  good  seats,  and  found  our 
selves  in  the  middle  of  enthusiastic  groups, 
jumping  up,  sitting  down,  calling,  beckoning, 
gesticulating,  and  talking  aloud.  There  were 
soon  more  than  six  thousand  persons  in  a  hall 
which  seated  but  four  thousand,  and  the  noise 
of  this  multitude  was  something  to  make  one 
deaf.  Every  one  seemed  either  looking  for  a 


3i8  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

friend  or  making  signals  to  one.  Most  of  those 
present  were  neatly  dressed,  even  those  who 
wore  blue  blouses  and  white  caps  ;  and  all  was 
good  nature,  except  that  now  and  then  some 
man  would  make  himself  obnoxious  and  be  put 
out,  usually  under  the  charge  of  being  a  Bona- 
partist  sent  there  purposely  to  make  trouble. 
At  such  times  there  would  be  a  sudden  roar, 
a  waving  of  arms  and  sticks,  amid  which  one 
could  discern  a  human  figure  being  passed  along 
rapidly  from  hand  to  hand,  and  at  last  dropped, 
gently  but  firmly,  over  the  stairway;  his  hat 
being  considerately  jammed  down  upon  his 
head  during  the  process.  Yet  all  was  done 
as  good-naturedly  as  such  a  summary  process 
permits  ;  there  was  nothing  that  looked  like 
rioting.  Opposite  the  high  tribune,  or  speak 
er's  stand,  was  placed  a  bust  of  Rousseau,  look 
ing  very  white  against  a  crimson  velvet  back 
ground  ;  five  French  flags  were  above  it,  and 
wreaths  of  violets  and  immortelles  below,  with 
this  inscription,  "  Consacra  sa  vie  a  la  ve"riteY' 
Beside  this  were  panels  inscribed  with  the  chief 
events  of  Rousseau's  life. 

When  at  last  Louis  Blanc  came  in  with  others 
—  all  towering  above  him  —  there  was  a  great 
clapping  of  hands,  and  shouts  of  "  Vive  1'amnis- 
tie !  Vive  la  Rdpublique  !  Vive  Louis  Blanc ! " 
The  demand  for  amnesty  referred  to  the  pardon 


LITERARY   PARIS  319 

of  political  prisoners,  and  was  then  one  of  the 
chief  war-cries  of  the  radical  party  of  France. 
After  the  group  of  speakers  there  appeared  a 
larger  group  of  singers,  —  there  had  been  a 
band  present  even  earlier,  —  and  then  all  said 
"  Sh  !  sh  !  sh  !  "  and  there  was  absolute  silence 
for  the  Marseillaise.  Nothing  of  the  kind  in 
this  world  can  be  more  impressive  than  the  way 
in  which  an  audience  of  six  thousand  French 
radicals  receives  that  wonderful  air.  I  ob 
served  that  the  group  of  young  men  who  led 
the  singing  never  once  looked  at  the  notes,  and 
few  even  had  any,  so  familiar  was  it  to  all. 
There  was  a  perfect  hush  in  that  vast  audience 
while  the  softer  parts  were  sung,  and  no  one 
joined  even  in  the  chorus  at  first,  for  everybody 
was  listening.  The  instant,  however,  that  the 
strain  closed,  the  applause  broke  like  a  trop 
ical  storm,  and  the  clapping  of  hands  was  like 
the  taking  flight  of  a  thousand  doves  all  over  the 
vast  arena.  Behind  those  twinkling  hands  the 
light  dresses  of  ladies  and  the  blue  blouses  of 
workingmen  seemed  themselves  to  shimmer  in 
the  air  ;  there  was  no  coarse  noise  of  pounding 
on  the  floor  or  drumming  on  the  seats,  but  there 
was  a  vast  cry  of  "  Bis  !  Bis  !  "  sent  up  from 
the  whole  multitude,  demanding  a  repetition. 
When  this  was  given,  several  thousand  voices 
joined  in  the  chorus ;  then  the  applause  was 


320  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

redoubled,  as  if  the  hearers  had  gathered  new 
sympathy  from  one  another  ;  after  which  there 
was  still  one  more  great  applauding  gust,  and 
then  an  absolute  quiet  as  Louis  Blanc  arose. 

It  all  brought  home  to  me  that  brief  and 
thrilling  passage  in  Erckmann-Chatrian's  story 
of  "Madame  The'rese,"  where  a  regiment  of 
French  soldiers,  having  formed  square,  is  being 
crushed  in  by  assaults  on  all  sides,  when  the 
colonel,  sitting  on  his  horse  in  the  middle,  takes 
off  his  chapeau  and  elevates  it  on  the  point  of 
his  sword,  and  then  begins  in  a  steady  voice 
to  chant  a  song.  Instantly  a  new  life  appears 
to  run  through  those  bleeding  and  despairing 
ranks  ;  one  voice  after  another  swells  the  chant, 
and  the  crushed  sides  of  the  square  gradually 
straighten  out  under  the  strong  inspiration, 
until  it  is  all  in  shape  again,  and  the  regiment  is 
saved.  I  could  perfectly  picture  to  myself  that 
scene,  while  listening  to  this  performance  of 
the  Marseillaise.  Afterwards  another  air  of  the 
French  Revolution  was  played  by  the  band,  the 
Chant  du  Depart,  and  this  was  received  with 
almost  equal  ecstasy,  and  was  indeed  fine  and 
stirring.  There  was  also  music  of  Rousseau's 
own  composition,  the  first  I  had  ever  heard,  and 
unexpectedly  good.  This  was  finely  sung  by 
two  vocalists  from  the  Theatre  Lyrique,  and  I 
was  told  that  they  were  risking  their  appoint 


LITERARY    PARIS  321 

ments  at  that  theatre  by  singing  in  an  assembly 
so  radical. 

The  speaking  was  eloquent  and  impressive, 
being  by  Louis  Blanc,  M.  Marcou,  and  M. 
Hamel.  All  read  their  speeches,  yet  each  so 
gesticulated  with  the  hand  and  accompanied 
the  action  with  the  whole  movement  of  the 
body  that  it  seemed  less  like  reading  than  like 
conversation.  The  orators  were  not  so  distin 
guished  as  at  the  Voltaire  celebration,  yet  it 
was  impossible  to  see  and  hear  Louis  Blanc 
without  liking  and  trusting  him,  while  he  es 
caped  wholly  from  that  air  of  posing  which  was 
almost  inseparable  from  Victor  Hugo,  and  was, 
perhaps,  made  inevitable  by  the  pedestal  on 
which  France  had  placed  him  so  long.  The 
audience  on  this  occasion  was  three  times  as 
large  as  at  Hugo's  address,  but  the  attention 
was  as  close  and  the  appreciation  almost  as 
delicate.  It  seems  impossible  to  bring  together 
a  French  audience  that  has  not  an  artistic 
sense.  The  applause,  like  the  speaking,  had 
always  a  certain  intellectual  quality  about  it ; 
the  things  said  might  be  extravagant  or  even 
truculent,  yet  they  must  be  passed  through  the 
fine  medium  of  the  French  tongue,  and  they 
were  heard  by  French  ears.  Whenever  there 
was  the  long  swell  of  a  sonorous  sentence,  the 
audience  listened  with  hushed  breath ;  and  if 


322  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

any  one  interrupted  the  cadence  by  premature 
applause,  there  came  an  almost  angry  "  Sh  ! 
sh !  "  to  postpone  it.  Once  when  this  inter 
ruption  was  persistently  made,  my  next  neigh 
bor  exclaimed  with  fury,  "  C'est  tr-r-rop  de 
precipitation !  "  throwing  himself  forward  and 
glaring  at  the  unhappy  marplot  with  an  expres 
sion  suggestive  of  guillotines ;  but  when  the 
interruption  subsided  and  the  sentence  stood 
fulfilled,  the  reserved  applause  broke  with  ac 
cumulated  power,  like  a  breaking  wave.  The 
enthusiasm  of  a  French  radical  audience  is  as 
wonderful  as  the  self-control  of  its  stillness,  or 
as  the  sudden  burst  of  vivacity  let  loose  during 
all  the  intervals  between  the  speeches.  The 
whole  affair  lasted  from  two  o'clock  until  nearly 
six,  and  during  the  last  hour  or  two  of  the  time 
I  found  myself  steadily  losing  that  disentan 
gling  power  which  one  must  use  in  comprehend 
ing  the  sentences  of  a  foreign  language ;  the 
faculty  became,  as  it  were,  benumbed  in  me, 
and  the  torrent  of  speech  simply  flowed  by 
without  reaching  the  brain ;  it  was  much  the 
same,  I  found,  with  my  two  young  companions. 
Yet  Louis  Blanc  was  of  all  Frenchmen  I  had 
ever  met  the  easiest  to  follow,  —  a  thing  the 
more  remarkable  as  his  brother,  Charles  Blanc, 
the  well-known  art  critic,  was  one  of  the  most 
difficult. 


LITERARY   PARIS  323 

The  evening  banquet  in  memory  of  the  de 
struction  of  the  Bastille  was  to  take  place  at 
half  past  seven  in  a  cafe"  in  the  Rue  de  Belle 
ville,  near  the  city  barriers.  As  we  went  to 
ward  the  place,  we  found  ourselves  in  an  abso 
lutely  French  region.  There  was  no  more 
"  English  spoken  "  in  the  shop  windows  ;  the 
people  around  us  were  natives  or  residents,  not 
lookers-on  ;  there  was  an  air  of  holiday ;  and 
there  were  children  not  a  few,  including  even 
babies  tightly  swathed.  As  we  toiled  up  the 
long  hill,  we  found  ourselves  approaching  the 
very  outskirts  of  Paris ;  and  when  we  entered 
the  hall,  there  must  have  been  five  hundred 
persons  already  seated,  among  whom  we  were 
perhaps  the  only  Anglo-Saxons.  The  men  and 
women  around  us  were  about  equal  in  num 
ber,  and  were  all  neatly,  sometimes  fashionably 
dressed.  Two  men  opposite  us  had  an  espe 
cially  cultivated  look,  and  soon  encouraged  some 
conversation.  At  first  they  took  us  for  Eng 
lish,  but  were  obviously  pleased  to  hear  that 
we  were  Americans,  and  then  as  visibly  disap 
pointed  at  learning,  on  inquiry,  that  neither  of 
us  belonged  to  the  masonic  order,  with  which 
European  radicals  claim  a  certain  affinity. 
They  drank  their  claret  to  the  Re*publique 
Ame"ricaine,  but  when  I  proposed  the  Re*pub- 
lique  Franchise  they  shook  their  heads  quite 


324  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

sadly,  and  pronounced  that  to  be  a  widely  dif 
ferent  thing.  This,  it  must  be  remembered, 
was  nearly  twenty  years  ago,  when  the  sense 
of  uncertainty  was  far  greater  than  it  is  now, 
and  when  the  policy  of  the  administration  was 
thought  very  reactionary. 

There  was  a  surprisingly  good  banquet  for  the 
money,  —  when  it  comes  to  cooking,  Frenchmen 
of  all  parties  make  much  the  same  demands,  — 
but  there  were  too  few  waiters  and  the  courses 
came  very  slowly,  so  that  when  we  left  the  hall, 
at  ten  o'clock,  the  guests  had  got  no  farther 
than  chicken.  Perhaps  it  was  one  result  of 
this  that  the  speaking  took  place  as  the  dinner 
went  on,  instead  of  waiting  for  the  cigars,  as 
with  us.  I  cannot  recall  the  names  of  the  ora 
tors,  except  General  Wimpffen,  a  man  of  vet 
eran  and  soldierly  appearance,  who  was  received 
with  great  enthusiasm,  the  French  army,  since 
the  Commune,  being  regarded  as  on  the  con 
servative  side.  A  peculiarly  cordial  greeting 
was  given  to  a  lady  who  read  extracts  from 
letters ;  such  a  spectacle  being  then  rare,  I  was 
told,  at  French  public  meetings.  The  speakers 
captured  and  destroyed  the  Bastille  with  great 
repetition  and  unanimously,  and  some  of  the 
talk  was  entirely  without  notes  and  quite  elo 
quent.  At  intervals  the  band  would  strike  in 
with  tremendous  force,  especially  in  the  direc- 


LITERARY   PARIS  325 

tion  of  the  Marseillaise,  the  guests  all  joining 
in  the  chorus,  with  their  mouths  full  and  with 
a  great  thumping  of  knife-handles  on  the  table. 
One  of  my  young  companions  pointed  out  that 
the  gleam  of  the  blades  during  this  last  per 
formance  was  the  only  thing  which  made  a  red 
republic  seem  a  possibility. 

The  nearest  approach  to  a  disturbance  was 
provoked  by  a  man  who  utterly  refused  to  keep 
still  during  the  speeches,  and  gave  forth  awful 
vociferations.  At  first  all  thought  him  a  Bona- 
partist  who  had  come  in  to  make  trouble,  and 
they  were  going  to  put  him  out  by  main  force. 
He  succeeded,  however,  in  explaining  that  he 
did  not  aim  at  a  revolution,  but  at  his  dinner  ; 
the  waiters  having  repeatedly  passed  him  by, 
he  said,  so  that  he  had  had  nothing  to  eat. 
Then  all  sympathy  turned  at  once  eagerly  in 
his  favor,  for  he  had  touched  a  national  chord, 
and  one  appealing  to  radical  and  conservative 
alike,  the  world  over ;  so  he  was  fed  profusely 
at  last,  and  all  was  peace. 


XI 

ON    THE   OUTSKIRTS    OF    PUBLIC   LIFE 

LIVING  in  a  university  city,  I  am  occasionally 
asked  by  students  how  they  can  best  train 
themselves  for  public  speaking ;  and  I  always 
begin  with  one  bit  of  counsel,  based  on  half 
a  century's  experience :  "  Enlist  in  a  reform." 
Engage  in  something  which  you  feel  for  the 
moment  to  be  so  unspeakably  more  important 
than  yourself  as  wholly  to  dwarf  you,  and  the 
rest  will  come.  No  matter  what  it  is,  —  tariff 
or  free  trade,  gold  standard  or  silver,  even  com 
munism  or  imperialism,  —  the  result  is  the 
same  as  to  oratory,  if  you  are  only  sincere. 
Even  the  actor  on  the  dramatic  stage  must  fill 
himself  with  his  part,  or  he  is  nothing,  and  the 
public  speaker  on  the  platform  must  be  more 
than  a  dramatic  actor  to  produce  the  highest 
effects.  When  the  leading  debater  in  an  inter 
collegiate  competition  told  me,  the  other  day, 
that  he  did  not  believe  in  the  cause  which  he 
was  assigned  to  advocate,  my  heart  sank  for 
him,  and  I  dimly  foresaw  the  defeat  which 
came.  There  is  an  essential  thing  wanting  to 


OUTSKIRTS   OF   PUBLIC   LIFE         327 

the  eloquence  of  the  men  who  act  a  part ;  but 
given  a  profound  sincerity,  and  there  is  some 
thing  wonderful  in  the  way  it  overcomes  the  ob 
stacles  of  a  hoarse  voice,  a  stammering  tongue, 
or  a  feeble  presence. 

On  the  anti-slavery  platform,  where  I  was 
reared,  I  cannot  remember  one  really  poor 
speaker;  as  Emerson  said,  "eloquence  was 
dog-cheap  "  there.  The  cause  was  too  real,  too 
vital,  too  immediately  pressing  upon  heart  and 
conscience,  for  the  speaking  to  be  otherwise 
than  alive.  It  carried  men  away  as  with  a 
flood.  Fame  is  never  wide  or  retentive  enough 
to  preserve  the  names  of  more  than  two  or 
three  leaders :  Bright  and  Cobden  in  the  anti- 
corn-law  movement ;  Clarkson  and  Wilberforce 
in  that  which  carried  West  India  Emancipa 
tion  ;  Garrison,  Phillips,  and  John  Brown  in 
the  great  American  agitation.  But  there  were 
constantly  to  be  heard  in  anti-slavery  meetings 
such  minor  speakers  as  Parker,  Douglass, 
William  Henry  Channing,  Burleigh,  Foster, 
May,  Remond,  Pillsbury,  Lucretia  Mott,  Abby 
Kelley,  —  each  one  holding  the  audience,  each 
one  making  converts.  How  could  eloquence 
not  be  present  there,  when  we  had  not  time  to 
think  of  eloquence  ?  —  as  Clarkson  under  simi 
lar  circumstances  said  that  he  had  not  time  to 
think  of  the  welfare  of  his  soul.  I  know  that 


328  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

my  own  teachers  were  the  slave  women  who 
came  shyly  before  the  audience,  women  per 
haps  as  white  as  my  own  sisters,  —  Ellen  Craft 
was  quite  as  white,  —  women  who  had  been 
stripped  and  whipped  and  handled  with  insolent 
hands  and  sold  to  the  highest  bidder  as  un 
hesitatingly  as  the  little  girl  whom  I  had  seen 
in  the  St.  Louis  slave-market ;  or  women  who, 
having  once  escaped,  had,  like  Harriet  Tubman, 
gone  back  again  and  again  into  the  land  of 
bondage  to  bring  away  their  kindred  and  friends. 
My  teachers  were  men  whom  I  saw  first  walk 
ing  clumsily  across  the  platform,  just  arrived 
from  the  South,  as  if  they  still  bore  a  hundred 
pounds  weight  of  plantation  soil  on  each  ankle, 
and  whom  I  saw  develop  in  the  course  of  years 
into  the  dignity  of  freedom.  What  were  the 
tricks  of  oratory  in  the  face  of  men  and  women 
like  these  ?  We  learned  to  speak  because  their 
presence  made  silence  impossible. 

All  this,  however,  I  did  not  recognize  at  the 
time  so  clearly  as  I  do  now;  nor  was  I  sure 
that  I,  at  least,  was  accomplishing  much  for  the 
cause  I  loved.  In  one  respect  the  influence 
of  Wendell  Phillips  did  me  harm  for  a  time,  as 
to  speaking  in  public,  because  it  was  his  firm 
belief  that  the  two  departments  of  literature 
and  oratory  were  essentially  distinct,  and  could 
not  well  be  combined  in  the  same  person.  He 


OUTSKIRTS   OF   PUBLIC   LIFE         329 

had  made  his  choice,  he  said,  and  had  aban 
doned  literature.  It  was  hard  to  persuade  him 
to  write  even  a  pamphlet  or  a  circular,  although 
when  he  did  it  was  done  with  such  terseness 
and  vigor  as  to  refute  his  theory.  Of  this  I 
was  gradually  convinced,  but  there  was  a  long 
period  during  which  I  accepted  the  alternative 
offered  by  him,  and  therefore  reasoned  that 
because  literature  was  my  apparent  vocation, 
oratory  was  not.  Of  course  it  was  often  neces 
sary  for  me  to  appear  on  the  platform,  but  I 
did  it  at  first  only  as  a  duty,  and  did  not  feel 
sure  of  myself  in  that  sphere.  Little  by  little 
the  impression  passed  away,  and  I  rejected 
Phillips's  doctrine.  Since  the  civil  war,  espe 
cially,  I  have  felt  much  more  self-confidence 
in  public  speaking ;  and  it  is  one  sign  of  this 
that  I  have  scarcely  ever  used  notes  before  an 
audience,  and  have  long  since  reached  the  point 
where  they  would  be  a  hindrance,  not  a  help. 
Indeed,  I  believe  that  most  young  speakers 
can  reach  this  point  much  earlier  than  they 
suppose ;  and  in  my  little  book,  "  Hints  on 
Writing  and  Speech-making,"  I  have  indicated 
how  this  can  be  done.  A  speaker's  magnetic 
hold  upon  his  audience  is  unquestionably  im 
paired  by  the  sight  of  the  smallest  bit  of  paper 
in  his  hand 

During  a  long  intervening  period,  however,  I 


330  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

lectured  a  great  deal  in  what  were  then  called 
"lyceum"  courses,  which  stretched  over  the 
northern  half  of  the  United  States,  forty  years 
ago,  to  an  extent  now  hardly  conceivable. 
There  were  two  or  three  large  organizations, 
or  bureaus,  which  undertook  systematically  the 
task  of  bringing  speaker  and  audience  together, 
with  the  least  possible  inconvenience  to  both. 
One  of  these,  whose  centre  was  Dubuque, 
Iowa,  negotiated  in  1867  for  thirty-five  lectur 
ers  and  one  hundred  and  ten  lecture  courses; 
undertaking  to  distribute  the  one  with  perfect 
precision,  and  to  supply  the  other.  As  a  re 
sult,  the  lecturer  left  home  with  a  printed  cir 
cular  in  his  pocket,  assigning  his  dozen  or  his 
hundred  engagements,  as  the  case  might  be. 
Many  of  these  might  be  in  towns  of  which  he 
had  never  heard  the  names.  No  matter;  he 
was  sure  that  they  would  be  there,  posted  a 
day's  journey  apart,  and  all  ready  to  receive 
him.  As  a  rule,  he  would  meet  in  each  new 
place  what  looked  like  the  same  audience, 
would  make  the  same  points  in  his  lecture  as 
before,  would  sleep  at  what  seemed  the  same 
hotel,  and  breakfast  on  the  same  tough  beef 
steak.  He  would  receive  the  usual  compli 
ments,  if  any,  and  make  the  same  courteous 
reply  to  the  accustomed  questions  as  to  the 
acoustics  of  the  hall  and  the  intelligence  of  the 


OUTSKIRTS   OF   PUBLIC   LIFE         331 

audience.  In  the  far  West  he  would  perhaps 
reach  villages  where,  as  the  people  came  twenty 
miles  for  their  entertainments,  a  dance  might 
be  combined  with  the  lecture,  —  "  tickets  to 
Emerson  and  ball,  one  dollar."  I  have  still  a 
handbill,  printed  in  some  village  in  Indiana  in 
1867,  wherein  Mr.  J.  Jackson  offers  to  read 
"Hamlet"  for  twenty -five  cents  admission, 
ladies  free.  He  adds  that  after  the  reading 
he  will  himself  plan  for  the  formation  of  a  com 
pany,  with  a  small  capital,  for  the  manufacture 
of  silk  handkerchiefs  of  a  quality  superior  to 
anything  in  the  market,  and  will  relate  some 
incidents  of  his  early  life  in  connection  with  this 
particular  article.  Thus  having  administered 
Hamlet  once,  he  would  prepare  his  audience  to 
shed  the  necessary  tears  on  a  second  hearing. 

To  the  literary  man,  ordinarily  kept  at  home 
by  task  work  or  by  domestic  cares,  —  and  both 
of  these  existed  in  my  own  case,  —  there  was  a 
refreshing  variety  in  a  week  or  two,  possibly  a 
month  or  more,  of  these  lecturing  experiences. 
Considered  as  a  regular  vocation,  such  lectur 
ing  was  benumbing  to  the  mind  as  well  as 
exhausting  to  the  body,  but  it  was  at  any  rate 
an  antidote  for  provincialism.  It  was  a  good 
thing  to  be  entertained  beyond  the  Mississippi, 
at  a  house  which  was  little  more  than  a  log 
cabin,  and  to  find,  as  I  have  found,  Longfel- 


332  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

low's  Dante  on  the  table  and  Millais*  Hugue 
not  Lovers  on  the  wall ;  or  to  visit,  as  I  once 
visited,  a  village  of  forty  houses,  in  the  same 
region,  in  nineteen  of  which  the  "Atlantic 
Monthly"  was  regularly  taken.  After  such 
experiences  a  man  could  go  back  to  his  writing 
or  his  editing  with  enlarged  faith.  He  would 
get  new  impressions,  too,  of  the  dignity  and 
value  of  the  lecture  system  itself.  In  one  of 
my  trips,  while  on  a  small  branch  railway  in 
New  England,  I  found  everybody  talking  about 
the  prospective  entertainment  of  that  evening, 
—  conductor,  brakemen,  and  passengers  all 
kept  recurring  to  the  subject;  everybody  was 
going.  As  we  drew  near  the  end,  the  conduc 
tor  singled  me  out  as  the  only  stranger  and  the 
probable  lecturer,  and  burst  into  eager  explana 
tion.  "  The  president  of  the  lyceum,"  he  said, 
"  is  absent  from  the  village,  and  the  vice-presi 
dent,  who  will  present  you  to  the  audience,  is 
the  engineer  of  this  very  train."  So  it  turned 
out :  the  engineer  introduced  me  with  dignity 
and  propriety;  he  proved  to  be  a  reader  of 
Emerson  and  Carlyle,  and  he  gave  me  a  ride 
homeward  on  his  locomotive  the  next  morning. 
There  was  something  pleasant,  also,  in  the 
knowledge  that  the  lecturer  himself  met  the 
people  as  man  to  man;  that  he  stood  upon 
the  platform  to  be  judged  and  weighed.  From 


OUTSKIRTS   OF   PUBLIC   LIFE         333 

the  talk  of  his  fellow  travelers  in  the  train,  be 
forehand,  he  could  know  what  they  expected  of 
him  ;  and  from  the  talk  next  morning,  how  he 
had  stood  the  test.  Wendell  Phillips  especially 
dreaded  this  last  ordeal,  and  always  went  home 
after  lecturing,  if  his  home  could  by  any  possi 
bility  be  reached  that  night,  in  order  to  avoid 
it.  The  lecturer,  often  unrecognized  in  his 
traveling  garb,  might  look  through  the  eyes  of 
others  on  his  own  face  and  figure ;  might  hear 
his  attitudes  discussed,  or  his  voice,  or  his  opin 
ions.  Once,  after  giving  a  lecture  on  physical 
education,  I  heard  it  talked  over  between  two 
respectable  ladies,  with  especial  reference  to 
some  disrespectful  remarks  of  mine  on  the 
American  pie.  I  had  said,  in  a  sentence  which, 
though  I  had  not  really  reduced  it  to  writing, 
yet  secured  a  greater  circulation  through  the 
newspapers  than  any  other  sentence  I  shall 
ever  write,  that  the  average  pie  of  the  Amer 
ican  railway  station  was  "  something  very  white 
and  indigestible  at  the  top,  very  moist  and  indi 
gestible  at  the  bottom,  and  with  untold  horrors 
in  the  middle."  I  had  given  this  lecture  at 
Fall  River,  and  was  returning  by  way  of  the 
steamboat  to  Providence,  when  I  heard  one  of 
my  neighbors  ask  the  other  if  she  heard  the 
lecture. 

"  No,"  she  answered,  "  I  did  n't.     But  Mis' 


334  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

Jones,  she  come  home  that  night,  and  she 
flung  her  hood  right  down  on  the  table,  and 
says  she,  'There,'  says  she,  'Mr.  Jones,  I'm 
never  goin'  to  have  another  o'  them  mince  pies 
in  the  house  just  as  long  as  I  live,'  says  she. 
'There  was  Sammy,'  says  she,  'he  was  sick  all 
last  night,  and  I  do  believe  it  was  nothin'  in  all 
the  world  but  just  them  mince  pies,'  says  she." 

"Well,"  said  the  other  lady,  a  slow,  deliberate 
personage,  "  I  do  suppose  that  them  kind  of 
concomitants  ain't  good  things." 

Here  the  conversation  closed,  but  Mr.  Weller 
did  not  feel  more  gratified  when  he  heard  the 
Bath  footmen  call  a  boiled  leg  of  mutton  a 
"swarry,"  and  wondered  what  they  would  call 
a  roast  one,  than  I  when  my  poor  stock  of 
phrases  was  reinforced  by  this  unexpected  poly 
syllable.  Instead  of  wasting  so  many  words 
to  describe  an  American  railway  pie,  I  should 
have  described  it,  more  tersely,  as  a  "  concom 
itant." 

The  lecture  system  was  long  since  shaken  to 
pieces  in  America  by  the  multiplying  of  news 
papers  and  the  growth  of  musical  and  dra 
matic  opportunities.  The  "bureaus"  now  exist 
mainly  for  the  benefit  of  foreign  celebrities; 
and  the  American  lecturer  has  come  to  concern 
himself  more  and  more  with  questions  of  pub 
lic  policy  and  morals,  while  literature  and  sci- 


OUTSKIRTS   OF   PUBLIC   LIFE         335 

ence  have  receded  more  into  the  background. 
The  transition  was  easy  from  the  lyceum  course 
to  the  political  platform,  and  this,  at  least,  has 
held  its  own.  No  delusion  is  harder  to  drive 
out  of  the  public  mind  than  the  impression  that 
college -bred  American  men  habitually  avoid 
public  duties.  It  may  hold  in  a  few  large  cities, 
but  is  rarely  the  case  in  country  towns,  and  in 
New  England  generally  is  quite  untrue.  In 
looking  back  fifty  years,  I  cannot  put  my  finger 
on  five  years  when  I  myself  was  not  perform 
ing  some  official  service  for  the  city  or  state, 
or  both  simultaneously.  In  each  of  the  four 
places  where  I  have  resided  I  have  been  a 
member  of  some  public  school  committee ;  and 
in  three  of  these  places  a  trustee  of  the  public 
library,  there  being  then  no  such  institution  in 
the  fourth  town,  although  I  was  on  a  committee 
to  prepare  for  one. 

As  to  service  to  the  commonwealth,  since  my 
return  to  my  native  state  —  twenty  years  ago  — 
I  have  spent  thirteen  years  in  some  public 
function,  one  year  as  chief  of  the  governor's 
personal  staff,  two  years  as  member  of  the  state 
House  of  Representatives,  three  years  on  the 
state  Board  of  Education,  and  seven  years  as 
state  military  and  naval  historian.  How  well 
I  did  my  duty  is  not  the  question  ;  we  are  deal 
ing  with  quantity  of  service,  not  quality.  Be- 


336  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

sides  all  this,  I  have  almost  invariably  voted 
when  there  was  any  voting  to  be  done,  have 
repeatedly  been  a  delegate  to  political  con 
ventions,  and  have  usually  attended  what  are 
called  primary  meetings,  often  presiding  at  them. 
There  is  nothing  exceptional  in  all  this  ;  it  is 
a  common  thing  for  American  citizens  to  have 
rendered  as  much  service  as  is  here  stated,  and 
in  the  university  city  where  I  dwell  it  is  the 
rule,  and  not  the  exception,  for  professors  and 
instructors  to  take  their  share  in  public  duties. 
Some  of  those  most  faithful  in  this  respect  have 
been  among  the  most  typical  and  fastidious 
scholars,  such  as  Professor  Charles  Eliot  Norton 
and  the  late  Professor  Francis  James  Child.  I 
confess  that  it  makes  me  somewhat  indignant 
to  hear  such  men  stigmatized  as  mere  idealists 
and  dilettantes  by  politicians  who  have  never  in 
all  their  lives  done  so  much  to  purify  and  ele 
vate  politics  as  these  men  have  been  doing  daily 
for  many  years. 

Side  by  side  with  this  delusion  there  is  an  im 
pression,  equally  mistaken,  that  college-bred  men 
are  disliked  in  politics,  and  have  to  encounter 
prejudice  and  distrust,  simply  by  reason  of  edu 
cation.  They  do  indeed  encounter  this  preju 
dice,  but  it  comes  almost  wholly  from  other  edu 
cated  men  who  think  that  they  can  make  a  point 
against  rivals  by  appealing  to  some  such  feeling. 


OUTSKIRTS   OF   PUBLIC   LIFE         337 

Nobody  used  this  weapon  more  freely,  for  in 
stance,  than  the  late  General  B.  F.  Butler,  who 
was  himself  a  college  graduate.  He  was  always 
ready  to  deride  Governor  John  D.  Long  for  hav 
ing  translated  Virgil ;  while  his  audiences,  if  let 
alone,  would  have  thought  it  a  creditable  per 
formance.  As  a  rule,  it  may  be  assumed  that 
any  jeer  at  a  "  scholar  in  politics "  proceeds 
from  some  other  scholar  in  politics.  It  was 
almost  pathetic  to  me  to  see,  while  in  the  Mas 
sachusetts  legislature,  the  undue  respect  and 
expectation  with  which  the  more  studious  men 
in  that  body  were  habitually  treated  by  other 
members,  who  perhaps  knew  far  more  than 
they  about  the  matters  of  practical  business 
with  which  legislatures  are  mainly  occupied.  It 
was,  if  analyzed,  a  tribute  to  a  supposed  breadth 
of  mind  which  did  not  always  exist,  or  to  a  com 
mand  of  language  which  proved  quite  inade 
quate.  Many  a  college  graduate  stammers  and 
repeats  himself,  while  a  man  from  the  anvil  or 
the  country  store  says  what  he  has  to  say  and 
sits  down.  Again  and  again,  during  my  service 
in  the  legislature,  when  some  member  had  been 
sent  there  by  his  town,  mainly  to  get  one  thing 
done,  —  a  boundary  changed  or  a  local  railway 
chartered,  —  he  has  come  to  me  with  an  ur 
gent  request  to  make  his  speech  for  him  ;  and  I 
have  tried  to  convince  him  of  the  universal  truth 


338  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

that  a  single-speech  man  who  has  never  before 
opened  his  lips,  but  who  understands  his  ques 
tion  through  and  through,  will  be  to  other  mem 
bers  a  welcome  relief  from  a  voice  they  hear 
too  often.  Wordsworth  says  :  — 

"  I  Ve  heard  of  hearts  unkind,  kind  deeds 

With  coldness  still  returning ; 
Alas  !  the  gratitude  of  men 

Hath  oftener  left  me  mourning." 

I  have  much  oftener  been  saddened  by  the  too 
great  deference  of  men  who  were  my  superiors 
in  everything  but  a  diploma  than  I  have  been 
amazed  by  their  jealousy  or  distrust. 

It  is  my  firm  conviction  that  there  never  was 
an  honester  body  of  men,  on  the  whole,  than 
the  two  Massachusetts  legislatures  with  which 
I  served  in  1880  and  1881.  If  there  has  been 
a  serious  change  since,  which  I  do  not  believe, 
it  has  been  a  very  rapid  decline.  Doubtless  the 
legislature  was  extremely  liable  to  prejudice  and 
impatience ;  it  required  tact  to  take  it  at  the  right 
moment,  and  also  not  to  bore  it.  I  had  next  me, 
for  a  whole  winter,  a  politician  of  foreign  birth, 
so  restless  that  he  never  could  remain  half  an 
hour  in  his  seat,  and  who  took  such  an  aversion 
to  one  of  the  ablest  lawyers  in  the  house,  because 
of  his  long  and  frequent  speeches,  that  he  made 
it  a  rule  to  go  out  whenever  this  orator  began, 
and  to  vote  against  every  motion  he  made.  This 


OUTSKIRTS   OF   PUBLIC   LIFE         339 

was  an  individual  case ;  yet  personal  popularity 
certainly  counted  for  a  great  deal,  up  to  the 
moment  when  any  man  trespassed  upon  it  and 
showed  that  his  head  was  beginning  to  be 
turned  ;  from  that  moment  his  advantage  was 
gone.  Men  attempting  to  bully  the  House  usu 
ally  failed ;  so  did  those  who  were  too  visibly 
wheedling  and  coaxing,  or  who  struck  an  unfair 
blow  at  an  opponent,  or  who  aspersed  the  gen 
eral  integrity  of  the  body  they  addressed,  or 
who  even  talked  down  to  it  too  much.  On 
the  other  hand,  there  existed  among  the  mem 
bers  certain  vast  and  inscrutable  undercurrents 
of  prejudice  ;  as,  for  instance,  those  relating  to 
the  rights  of  towns,  or  the  public  school  system, 
or  the  law  of  settlement,  or  perhaps  only  ques 
tions  of  roads  and  navigable  streams,  or  of  the 
breadth  of  wheels  or  the  close  tim*  of  fishing, 
—  points  which  could  never  be  quite  appreci 
ated  by  academic  minds  or  even  city-bred  minds, 
and  which  yet  might  at  any  moment  create  a 
current  formidable  to  encounter,  and  usually 
impossible  to  resist.  Every  good  debater  in 
the  House  and  every  one  of  its  recognized  legal 
authorities  might  be  on  one  side,  and  yet  the 
smallest  contest  with  one  of  these  latent  preju 
dices  would  land  them  in  a  minority. 

There  were  men  in  the  House  who  scarcely 
ever  spoke,  but  who  comprehended  these  pre- 


340  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

judices  through  and  through;  and  when  I  had 
a  pet  measure  to  support,  I  felt  more  alarmed 
at  seeing  one  of  these  men  passing  quietly 
about  among  the  seats,  or  even  conversing  with 
a  group  in  the  cloak-room,  than  if  I  had  found 
all  the  leaders  in  the  legislature  opposed  to  me. 
Votes  were  often  carried  against  the  leaders, 
but  almost  never  against  this  deadly  undertow 
of  awakened  prejudice.  No  money  could  pos 
sibly  have  affected  it ;  and  indeed  the  attempt 
to  use  money  to  control  the  legislature  must 
then  have  been  a  very  rare  thing.  There  was 
not  then,  and  perhaps  is  not  to  this  day,  any 
organized  corporation  which  had  such  a  control 
ling  influence  in  Massachusetts  as  have  certain 
railways,  according  to  rumor,  in  Connecticut  and 
Pennsylvania.  Something  of  this  power  has 
been  attributed,  since  my  time,  perhaps  with 
out  reason,  to  the  great  West  End  Railway ; 
but  there  was  certainly  only  one  man  in  the 
legislature,  at  the  time  I  describe,  who  was 
generally  believed  to  be  the  agent  of  a  powerful 
corporation ;  and  although  he  was  one  of  the 
most  formidable  debaters  in  the  house,  by  rea 
son  of  wit  and  brilliancy,  he  yet  failed  to  carry 
votes  through  this  general  distrust.  Men  in 
such  bodies  often  listen  eagerly,  for  entertain 
ment,  to  an  orator  who  commands  after  all  but 
few  votes,  while  they  are  perhaps  finally  con- 


OUTSKIRTS   OF   PUBLIC   LIFE         341 

vinced,  nevertheless,  by  some  dull  or  stammer 
ing  speaker  who  thoroughly  comprehends  what 
he  is  discussing  and  whose  sincerity  is  recog 
nized  by  all. 

Perhaps  the  most  tedious  but  often  the  most 
amusing  part  of  legislative  life  consists  in  the 
hearings  before  committees.  I  was  at  differ 
ent  times  House  chairman  of  committees  on 
constitutional  amendments,  on  education,  on 
woman  suffrage,  and  on  "  expediting  the  busi 
ness  of  the  House."  All  these  were  liable  to 
be  the  prey  of  what  are  called  cranks,  but  espe 
cially  the  first  of  these,  which  gathered  what 
Emerson  once  called  "  the  soul  of  the  soldiery 
of  dissent."  There  were  men  and  women  who 
haunted  the  State  House  simply  to  address  the 
sessions  of  the  Committee  on  Constitutional 
Amendments,  and  who  would  have  been  per 
fectly  ready  to  take  all  that  part  of  the  business 
off  our  hands.  I  find  in  my  notebook  that  one 
of  these,  an  Irishman,  once  said  to  us,  with 
the  headlong  enthusiasm  of  his  race,  "  Before  I 
say  anything  on  this  subject,  let  me  say  a  word 
or  two  !  In  a  question  of  integral  calculus, 
you  must  depend  on  some  one  who  can  solve  it. 
Now  I  have  solved  this  question  of  Biennial  Ses 
sions,"  this  being  the  subject  under  considera 
tion,  "  and  you  must  depend  on  me.  Working 
men,  as  a  rule,  have  what  may  be  called  a  moral 


342  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

sense.  Moral  sense  is  that  which  enables  us  to 
tell  heat  from  cold,  to  tell  white  from  yellow : 
that  is  moral  sense.  Moral  sense  tells  us  right 
from  wrong."  Then  followed  an  address  with 
more  of  fact  and  reasoning  than  one  could  pos 
sibly  associate  with  such  an  introduction,  but 
ending  with  the  general  conclusion,  "It  [the 
biennial  method]  would  give  more  power  to  the 
legislature,  for  they  would  centralize  more  money 
into  their  pockets.  I  hope  every  member  of  the 
legislature,  when  this  matter  comes  up,  will  be 
voted  down."  All  these  flowers  of  speech  are 
taken  from  my  own  notebook  as  kept  in  the 
committee. 

I  always  rather  enjoyed  being  contradicted 
in  the  legislature  or  being  cross-examined  on  the 
witness-stand ;  first,  because  the  position  gives 
one  opportunity  to  bring  in,  by  way  of  rejoinder, 
points  which  would  not  have  fitted  legitimately 
into  one's  main  statement,  thus  approaching  the 
matter  by  a  flank  movement,  as  it  were ;  and 
again  because  the  sympathy  of  the  audience  is 
always  with  the  party  attacked,  and  nothing 
pleases  the  spectators  better,  especially  in  the 
court-room,  then  to  have  a  witness  turn  the 
tables  on  the  lawyer.  It  is  much  the  same  in 
legislative  bodies,  and  nothing  aided  the  late 
General  Butler  more  than  the  ready  wit  with 
which  he  would  baffle  the  whole  weight  of  argu- 


OUTSKIRTS   OF   PUBLIC   LIFE         343 

ment  by  a  retort.  The  same  quality  belonged 
to  the  best  rough-and-ready  fighter  in  the  Mas 
sachusetts  legislature  of  1881,  —  a  man  to  whom 
I  have  already  referred  as  lacking  the  confi 
dence  of  the  House.  He  was  a  man  who  often 
hurt  the  cause  he  advocated  by  the  brutality 
of  his  own  argument,  and  was  never  so  formid 
able  as  when  he  was  driven  into  a  corner,  and 
suddenly,  so  to  speak,  threw  a  somerset  over 
his  assailant's  head  and  came  up  smiling.  I  re 
member  to  have  been  once  the  victim  of  this 
method  when  I  felt  safest.  I  was  arguing 
against  one  of  those  bills  which  were  constantly 
reappearing  for  the  prohibition  of  oleomarga 
rine,  and  which  usually  passed  in  the  end,  from 
a  sheer  desire  to  content  the  farmers.  I  was 
arguing  —  what  I  have  always  thought  to  this 
day  —  that  good  oleomargarine  was  far  better 
than  bad  butter,  and  should  not  be  prohibited ; 
and  I  fortified  this  by  a  story  I  had  just  heard 
of  a  gentleman  in  New  York  city,  who  had  in 
troduced  the  substitute  without  explanation  at 
a  lunch  he  had  lately  given,  and  who,  on  asking 
his  guests  to  compare  it  with  the  best  butter, 
also  on  the  table,  found  them  all  selecting  the 
oleomargarine.  The  House  had  seemed  about 
equally  divided,  and  I  thought  my  little  anecdote 

had  carried  the  day,  when  Mr.  arose  and 

with  the  profoundest  seriousness  asked,  "  Will 


344  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

the  gentleman  kindly  inform  us  at  what  precise 
stage  of  the  lunch  party  this  test  was  applied  ? " 
The  retort  brought  down  the  house  instantly, 
and  the  rout  which  followed  was  overwhelming. 
It  readily  occurred  to  the  experienced,  or  even 
to  the  inexperienced,  that  at  a  convivial  party 
in  New  York  there  might  arrive  a  period  when 
the  judgment  of  the  guests  would  lose  some  of 
its  value. 

I  had,  in  the  legislature,  my  fair  share  of  suc 
cesses  and  failures,  having  the  pleasure,  for 
instance,  of  reporting  and  carrying  through  the 
present  law  which  guarantees  children  in  pub 
lic  schools  from  being  compelled  to  read  from 
the  Bible  against  the  wish  of  their  parents,  and 
also  the  bill  giving  to  the  Normal  Art  School  a 
dwelling-place  of  its  own.  I  contributed  largely, 
the  reporters  thought,  to  the  defeat  of  a  mea 
sure  which  my  constituents  generally  approved, 
the  substitution  of  biennial  sessions  for  annual ; 
and  have  lived  to  see  it  finally  carried  through 
the  legislature,  and  overwhelmingly  defeated  by 
the  popular  vote.  I  supported  many  proposi 
tions  which  required  time  to  mature  them  and 
have  since  become  laws ;  as  the  abolition  of  the 
poll  tax  qualification  for  voting,  and  the  final 
effacement  of  the  school  district  system.  Other 
such  measures  which  I  supported  still  require 
farther  time  for  agitation,  as  woman  suffrage 


OUTSKIRTS   OF   PUBLIC   LIFE         345 

and  the  removal  of  the  stigma  on  atheist  wit 
nesses.  The  latter,  as  well  as  the  former,  was 
very  near  my  heart,  since  I  think  it  an  outrage 
first  to  admit  the  evidence  of  atheists,  and  then 
admit  evidence  to  show  that  they  are  such,  — 
a  contradiction  which  Professor  Longfellow  de 
scribed  as  "  allowing  men  to  testify,  and  then 
telling  the  jury  that  their  testimony  was  not 
worth  having."  This  measure  was  defeated, 
not  by  the  Roman  Catholics  in  the  House,  but 
by  the  Protestants,  the  representatives  of  the 
former  being  equally  divided  ;  a  result  attrib 
uted  mainly  to  my  having  a  certain  personal 
popularity  among  that  class.  A  more  curious 
result  of  the  same  thing  was  when  the  woman 
suffrage  bill  was  defeated,  and  when  four  Irish- 
American  members  went  out  and  sat  in  the 
lobby,  —  beside  Mr.  Plunkett,  the  armless  ser- 
geant-at-arms,  who  told  me  the  fact  afterwards, 
—  not  wishing  either  to  vote  for  the  bill  or  to 
vote  against  what  I  desired.  I  rejoice  to  say 
that  I  had  the  same  experience  described  by 
Theodore  Roosevelt,  in  finding  my  general  lik 
ing  for  the  Irish  temperament  confirmed  by 
seeing  men  of  that  race  in  public  bodies.  Often 
unreasonable,  impetuous,  one-sided,  or  schem 
ing,  they  produce  certainly  some  men  of  a  high 
type  of  character.  There  was  no  one  in  the 
legislature  for  whose  motives  and  habits  of  mind 


346  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

I  had  more  entire  respect  than  for  those  of  a 
young  Irish-American  lawyer,  since  dead,  who 
sat  in  the  next  seat  to  mine  during  a  whole 
session.  I  believe  that  the  instinct  of  this 
whole  class  for  politics  is  on  the  whole  a  sign  of 
promise,  although  producing  some  temporary 
evils ;  and  that  it  is  much  more  hopeful,  for  in 
stance,  than  the  comparative  indifference  to 
public  affairs  among  our  large  French-Canadian 
population. 

The  desire  for  office,  once  partially  gratified, 
soon  becomes  very  strong,  and  the  pride  of 
being  known  as  a  "  vote-getter "  is  a  very  po 
tent  stimulus  to  Americans,  and  is  very  demor 
alizing.  Few  men  are  willing  to  let  the  offices 
come  to  them,  and  although  they  respect  this 
quality  of  abstinence  in  another,  if  combined 
with  success,  they  do  not  have  the  same  feel 
ing  for  it  per  se.  They  early  glide  into  the 
habit  of  regarding  office  as  a  perquisite,  and  as 
something  to  be  given  to  the  man  who  works 
hardest  for  it,  not  to  the  man  who  is  best  fitted 
for  it.  Money  too  necessarily  enters  into  the 
account,  as  is  shown  by  the  habit  of  assessing 
candidates  in  proportion  to  their  salaries  —  a 
thing  to  which  I  have  always  refused  to  sub 
mit.  Again,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  there  is  a  cer 
tain  amount  of  hypocrisy  on  the  subject,  and 
men  often  carry  on  a  still  hunt,  as  it  is  tech- 


OUTSKIRTS   OF   PUBLIC   LIFE         347 

nically  called,  and  do  not  frankly  own  their 
methods.  I  remember  when,  some  thirty  years 
ago,  a  man  eminent  in  our  public  life  was  boast 
ing  to  me  of  the  nomination  of  his  younger 
brother  for  Congress,  and  this  especially  on 
the  ground  that  whereas  his  competitor  for  the 
nomination  had  gone  about  promising  offices 
and  other  rewards  to  his  henchmen,  the  suc 
cessful  candidate  had  entirely  refused  to  do 
anything  of  the  kind,  and  had  won  on  his 
merits  alone.  Afterward,  on  my  asking  the 
manager  of  the  latter's  campaign  whether  there 
was  really  so  much  difference  in  the  methods 
of  the  two,  he  said  with  a  chuckle,  "  Well,  I 
guess  there  was  n't  much  left  undone  on  either 
side."  The  whole  tendency  of  public  life  is 
undoubtedly  to  make  a  man  an  incipient  boss, 
and  to  tempt  him  to  scheme  and  bargain ;  and 
it  is  only  the  most  favorable  circumstances 
which  can  enable  a  man  to  succeed  without 
this ;  it  is  mainly  a  question  whether  he  shall 
do  it  in  person,  or  through  an  agent  or  "  wicked 
partner."  The  knowledge  of  this  drives  from 
public  life  some  men  well  fitted  to  adorn  it,  and 
brings  in  many  who  are  unfit.  The  only  ques 
tion  is  whether  there  is  much  variation  in  this  re 
spect  between  different  countries,  and  whether 
the  process  by  which  a  man  gets  promotion  in 
England,  for  instance,  differs  always  essentially 


348  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

from  the  method  by  which  position  is  gained  in 
American  public  life.  It  is  my  own  impression 
that  this  is  also  a  case  where  there  is  not  much 
left  undone  on  either  side. 

Here  is  one  plain  advantage  in  the  hands  of 
the  literary  man:  that  he  lives  mainly  in  a 
world  where  these  various  devices  are  far  less 
needful.  The  artist,  said  Goethe,  is  the  only 
man  who  lives  with  unconcealed  aims.  Suc 
cesses  are  often  won  by  inferior  productions, 
no  doubt,  but  it  is  because  these  are  in  some 
way  better  fitted  to  the  current  taste,  and  it  is 
very  rarely  intrigue  or  pushing  which  secures 
fame.  It  is  rare  to  see  a  book  which  suc 
ceeds  mainly  through  business  strategy ;  and  if 
such  a  case  occurs,  it  is  very  apt  to  be  only  a 
temporary  affair,  followed  by  reaction.  This, 
therefore,  is  an  advantage  on  the  side  of  litera 
ture  ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  the  direct  contact 
with  men  and  the  sense  of  being  uncloistered 
is  always  a  source  of  enjoyment  in  public  life, 
and  I  should  be  sorry  to  go  altogether  without 
it.  Presiding  at  public  meetings,  for  instance, 
is  a  position  which  affords  positive  enjoyment 
to  any  one  to  whom  it  comes  easily ;  it  demands 
chiefly  a  clear  head,  prompt  decision,  absolute 
impartiality,  and  tolerable  tact.  An  audience 
which  recognizes  these  qualities  will  almost  in 
variably  sustain  the  chairman;  those  present 


OUTSKIRTS   OF   PUBLIC  LIFE         349 

have  usually  come  there  for  a  certain  purpose, 
to  carry  the  meeting  fairly  through,  and  they 
will  stand  by  a  man  who  helps  to  this,  though 
if  he  is  tricky  they  will  rebel,  and  if  he  is 
irresolute  they  will  ride  over  him.  The  rules 
of  order  are  really  very  simple,  and  are  almost 
always  based  on  good  common  sense ;  and 
there  is  the  same  sort  of  pleasure  in  managing 
a  somewhat  turbulent  meeting  that  is  found  in 
driving  a  four-in-hand.  At  smaller  meetings  of 
committees  and  the  like,  an  enormous  amount 
can  be  done  by  conciliation ;  nine  times  out  of 
ten  the  differences  are  essentially  verbal,  and 
the  suggestion  of  a  word,  the  substitution  of  a 
syllable,  will  perhaps  quell  the  rising  storm. 
People  are  sometimes  much  less  divided  in 
purpose  than  they  suppose  themselves  to  be, 
and  an  extremely  small  concession  will  furnish 
a  sufficient  relief  for  pride.  There  is  much, 
also,  in  watching  the  temper  of  those  with 
whom  you  deal  and  in  choosing  the  fortunate 
moment,  —  a  thing  which  the  late  President 
Garfield,  while  leader  of  the  House  of  Repre 
sentatives  at  Washington,  pointed  out  to  me 
as  the  first  essential  of  success.  There  were 
days,  he  said,  when  one  could  carry  through, 
almost  without  opposition,  measures  that  at 
other  times  would  have  to  be  fought  inch  by 
inch  ;  and  I  afterwards  noticed  the  same  thing 


350  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

in  the  Massachusetts  legislature.  It  is  so, 
also,  I  have  heard  the  attendants  say,  even 
with  the  wild  beasts  in  a  menagerie  :  there  are 
occasions  when  the  storm  signals  are  raised, 
and  no  risks  must  be  taken,  even  with  the 
tamest. 

Probably  no  other  presidential  election  which 
ever  took  place  in  this  country  showed  so  small 
a  share  of  what  is  base  or  selfish  in  politics  as 
the  first  election  of  President  Cleveland;  and 
in  this  I  happened  to  take  a  pretty  active  part. 
I  was  concerned  in  his  original  nomination  and 
afterwards  spoke  in  his  behalf  in  five  different 
states,  Massachusetts,  New  Hampshire,  Ver 
mont,  New  York,  and  New  Jersey,  and  was 
brought  closely  in  contact  with  the  current  of 
popular  feeling,  which  I  found  a  sound  and 
wholesome  one.  The  fact  that  he  was  a  new 
man  kept  him  singularly  free  from  personal 
entanglements  until  actually  in  office ;  and  his 
rather  deliberate  and  stubborn  temperament, 
with  the  tone  of  his  leading  supporters,  gave 
an  added  safeguard.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
same  slowness  of  temperament  made  it  impossi 
ble  for  him  to  supervise  all  departments  at  once, 
and  he  had  to  leave  some  of  them  in  the  hands 
of  old-fashioned  spoilsmen.  There  was  among 
those  who  originally  brought  him  forward  — 
the  so-called  Mugwumps  —  an  almost  exag- 


OUTSKIRTS   OF   PUBLIC   LIFE         351 

gerated  unselfishness,  at  least  for  a  time;  in 
Massachusetts,  especially,  it  was  practically  un 
derstood  among  them  that  they  were  to  ask 
for  nothing  personally ;  and  they  generally  got 
what  they  asked  for.  Mr.  Cleveland's  admin 
istration,  with  all  its  strength  and  weakness, 
has  gone  into  history ;  he  had,  if  ever  a  man 
had,  les  dtfauts  dc  ses  qualitfs,  but  I  cannot 
remember  any  President  whose  support  im 
plied  so  little  that  was  personally  unsatisfac 
tory.  This  I  say  although  I  was  led  by  my  in 
terest  in  him  to  accept,  rather  against  my  will, 
a  nomination  for  Congress  on  the  Democratic 
ticket  at  the  time  when  Mr.  Cleveland  failed 
of  reelection  (1888).  I  made  many  speeches 
in  my  own  district,  mainly  in  his  behalf ;  and 
although  I  was  defeated,  I  had  what  is  regarded 
in  politics  as  the  creditable  outcome  of  having 
more  votes  in  the  district  than  the  head  of  the 
ticket. 

There  are  always  many  curious  experiences  in 
campaign-speaking.  It  will  sometimes  happen 
that  the  orators  who  are  to  meet  on  the  plat 
form  have  approached  the  matter  from  wholly 
different  points  of  view,  so  that  each  makes 
concessions  which  logically  destroy  the  other's 
arguments,  were  the  audience  only  quick 
enough  to  find  it  out ;  or  it  may  happen  — 
which  is  worse  —  that  the  first  speaker  antici- 


352  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

pates  the  second  so  completely  as  to  leave  him 
little  to  say.  It  is  universally  the  case,  I  be 
lieve,  that  toward  the  end  of  the  campaign 
every  good  point  made  by  any  speaker,  every 
telling  anecdote,  every  neat  repartee,  is  so 
quoted  from  one  to  another  that  the  speeches 
grow  more  and  more  identical.  One  gets  ac 
quainted,  too,  with  a  variety  of  prejudices,  and 
gains  insight  into  many  local  peculiarities  and 
even  accents.  I  remember  that  once,  when  I 
was  speaking  on  the  same  platform  with  an 
able  young  Irish  lawyer,  he  was  making  an 
attack  on  the  present  Senator  Lodge,  and  said 
contemptuously,  "  Mr.  Henry  Cabot  Lodge  of 
Ncihant" — and  he  paused  for  a  response  which 
did  not  adequately  follow.  Then  he  repeated 
more  emphatically,  "  Of  Nahant !  He  calls  it 
in  that  way,  but  common  people  say  Nahant ! " 
Then  the  audience  took  the  point,  and,  being 
largely  Irish,  responded  enthusiastically.  Now, 
Mr.  Lodge  had  only  pronounced  the  name  of 
his  place  of  residence  as  he  had  done  from 
the  cradle,  as  his  parents  had  said  it  before 
him,  and  as  all  good  Bostonians  had  habitually 
pronounced  it,  with  the  broad  sound  that  is 
universal  among  Englishmen,  except  —  as  Mr. 
Thomas  Hardy  has  lately  assured  me  —  in  the 
Wessex  region ;  while  this  sarcastic  young 
political  critic,  on  the  other  hand,  representing 


OUTSKIRTS   OF   PUBLIC   LIFE         353 

the  Western  and  Southern  and  Irish  mode  of 
speech,  treated  this  tradition  of  boyhood  as  a 
mere  bit  of  affectation. 

One  forms  unexpected  judgments  of  charac 
ters,  also,  on  the  platform.  I  can  remember 
one  well-known  lawyer,  —  not  now  living,  — 
with  whom  I  was  at  several  times  associated, 
and  whose  manner  to  an  audience,  as  to  a 
jury,  was  so  intolerably  coaxing,  flattering,  and 
wheedling  that  it  always  left  me  with  a  strong 
wish  that  I  could  conscientiously  vote  against 
him.  I  remember  also  one  eminent  clergyman 
and  popular  orator  who  spoke  with  me  before 
a  very  rough  audience  at  Jersey  City,  and  who 
so  lowered  himself  by  his  tone  on  the  platform, 
making  allusions  and  repartees  so  coarse,  that 
I  hoped  I  might  never  have  to  speak  beside 
him  again.  Of  all  the  speakers  with  whom  I 
have  ever  occupied  the  platform,  the  one  with 
whom  I  found  it  pleasantest  to  be  associated 
was  the  late  Governor  William  Eustis  Russell 
of  Massachusetts.  Carrying  his  election  three 
successive  times  in  a  state  where  his  party  was 
distinctly  in  the  minority,  he  yet  had,  among 
all  political  speakers  whom  I  have  ever  heard, 
the  greatest  simplicity  and  directness  of  state 
ment,  the  most  entire  absence  of  trick,  of  clap 
trap,  or  of  anything  which  would  have  low 
ered  him.  Striking  directly  at  the  main  line  of 


354  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

his  argument,  always  well  fortified,  making  his 
points  uniformly  clear,  dealing  sparingly  in  joke 
or  anecdote,  yet  never  failing  to  hold  his  audi 
ence,  he  was  very  near  the  ideal  of  a  political 
speaker ;  nor  has  the  death  of  any  man  in  pub 
lic  life  appeared  so  peculiar  and  irremediable 
a  loss. 

On  the  election  of  John  Davis  Long,  now 
Secretary  of  the  Navy,  as  governor  of  Massa 
chusetts  in  1880,  he  asked  me  to  act  on  his 
military  staff ;  and  although  I  had  not  known 
him  personally,  I  felt  bound  to  accept  the  post. 
The  position  is  commonly  regarded  in  time  of 
peace  as  merely  ornamental,  but  I  had  learned 
during  the  civil  war  how  important  it  might 
become  at  any  moment ;  and  as  nearly  all  his 
staff  had  seen  some  actual  service,  I  regarded 
the  appointment  as  an  honor.  So  peaceful 
was  his  administration  that  my  chief  duty  was 
in  representing  him  at  public  dinners  and  mak 
ing  speeches  in  his  place.  Sometimes,  how 
ever,  I  went  with  him,  and  could  admire  in 
him  that  wondrous  gift,  which  is  called  in  other 
countries  "  the  royal  faculty,"  of  always  remem 
bering  the  name  of  every  one.  With  the  ut 
most  good  will  toward  the  human  race,  I  never 
could  attain  to  this  gift  of  vivid  personal  recol 
lection,  and  could  only  admire  in  my  chief  the 
unerring  precision  with  which  he  knew  in  each 


OUTSKIRTS   OF   PUBLIC   LIFE         355 

case  whether  it  was  his  constituent's  wife  or 
grandaunt  who  had  been  suffering  under  chronic 
rheumatism  last  year,  and  who  must  now  be 
asked  for  with  accuracy.  He  had,  too,  the 
greatest  tact  in  dealing  with  his  audiences,  not 
merely  through  humor  and  genial  good  sense, 
but  even  to  the  point  of  risking  all  upon  some 
little  stroke  of  audacity.  This  happened,  for 
instance,  when  he  delighted  the  Ancient  and 
Honorable  Artillery,  a  body  made  up  from  vari 
ous  military  and  non- military  ingredients,  by 
complimenting  them  on  their  style  of  marching, 
— which  was  rarely  complimented  by  others, — 
and  this  on  the  ground  that  he  did  "not  re 
member  ever  to  have  seen  just  such  march 
ing."  The  shot  told,  and  was  received  with 
cheer  upon  cheer.  Almost  the  only  mistake  I 
ever  knew  this  deservedly  popular  official  to 
make  in  dealing  with  an  audience  was  when  he 
repeated  the  same  stroke  soon  after  upon  a 
rural  semi-military  company  of  somewhat  sim 
ilar  description,  which  received  it  in  stern  and 
unsympathetic  silence ;  for  it  was  their  march 
ing  upon  which  these  excellent  citizens  had, 
perhaps  mistakenly,  prided  themselves  the  most 
The  Nemesis  of  public  speaking  —  the  thing 
which  makes  it  seem  almost  worthless  in  the 
long  run  —  is  the  impossibility  of  making  it 
tell  for  anything  after  its  moment  is  past 


356  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

A  book  remains  always  in  existence,  —  litera 
scripta  manet,  —  and  long  after  it  seems  for- 
gotten  it  may  be  disinterred  from  the  dust  of 
libraries,  and  be  judged  as  freshly  as  if  written 
yesterday.  The  popular  orator  soon  disappears 
from  memory,  and  there  is  perhaps  substituted 
in  his  place  some  solid  thinker  like  Burke,  who 
made  speeches,  indeed,  but  was  called  "the 
Dinner  Bell,"  because  the  members  of  Parlia 
ment  scattered  themselves  instead  of  listening 
when  he  rose.  Possibly  this  briefer  tenure  of 
fame  is  nature's  compensation  for  the  more 
thrilling  excitement  of  the  orator's  life  as  com 
pared  with  the  author's.  The  poet's  eye  may 
be  in  never  so  fine  a  frenzy  rolling,  but  he 
enjoys  himself  alone ;  he  can  never  wholly 
trust  his  own  judgment,  nor  even  that  of  his 
admiring  family.  A  perceptible  interval  must 
pass  before  he  hears  from  his  public.  The 
orator's  appreciation,  on  the  other  hand,  comes 
back  as  promptly  as  an  answering  echo  :  his 
hearers  sometimes  hardly  wait  for  his  sentence 
to  be  ended.  In  this  respect  he  is  like  the 
actor,  and  enjoys,  like  him,  a  life  too  exciting 
to  be  quite  wholesome.  There  are  moments 
when  every  orator  speaks,  as  we  may  say,  above 
himself.  Either  he  waked  that  morning  fresher 
and  more  vigorous  than  usual,  or  he  has  had 
good  news,  or  the  audience  is  particularly  sym- 


OUTSKIRTS   OF   PUBLIC   LIFE         357 

pathetic ;  at  any  rate,  he  surprises  himself  by 
going  beyond  his  accustomed  range.  Or  it  may 
be,  on  the  other  hand,  that  he  has  heard  bad 
news,  or  the  audience  is  particularly  antago 
nistic,  so  that  he  gets  the  warmth  by  reaction, 
as  from  a  cold  bath.  When  Wendell  Phillips  was 
speaking  more  tamely  than  usual,  the  younger 
Abolitionists  would  sometimes  go  round  behind 
the  audience  and  start  a  hiss,  which  roused 
him  without  fail.  The  most  experienced  public 
speaker  can  never  fully  allow  for  these  varia 
tions,  or  foretell  with  precision  what  his  suc 
cess  is  to  be.  No  doubt  there  may  be  for  all 
grades  of  intellect  something  akin  to  inspira 
tion,  when  it  is  the  ardor  of  the  blood  which 
speaks,  and  the  orator  himself  seems  merely  to 
listen.  Probably  a  scolding  fishwoman  has  her 
days  of  glory  when  she  is  in  remarkably  good 
form,  and  looks  back  afterward  in  astonishment 
at  her  own  flow  of  language.  Whatever  sur 
prises  the  speaker  is  almost  equally  sure  to 
arrest  the  audience  ;  his  prepared  material  may 
miss  its  effect,  but  his  impulse  rarely  does. 
"Indeed,"  as  I  wrote  elsewhere  long  ago,  "the 
best  hope  that  any  orator  can  have  is  to  rise  at 
favored  moments  to  some  height  of  enthusiasm 
that  shall  make  all  his  previous  structure  of 
preparation  superfluous  ;  as  the  ship  in  launch 
ing  glides  from  the  ways,  and  scatters  cradle- 


358  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

timbers  and  wedges  upon  the  waters  that  are 
henceforth  to  be  her  home." 

The  moral  of  my  whole  tale  is  that  while  no 
man  who  is  appointed  by  nature  to  literary  ser 
vice  should  forsake  it  for  public  life,  yet  the 
experience  of  the  platform,  and  even  of  direct 
political  service,  will  be  most  valuable  to  him 
up  to  a  certain  point.  That  neither  of  these 
avenues  leads  surely  to  fame  or  wealth  is  a 
wholly  secondary  matter.  Gibbon  says  of  him 
self  that  "in  circumstances  more  indigent  or 
more  wealthy  "  he  "  should  never  have  accom 
plished  the  task  or  acquired  the  fame  of  an 
historian."  For  myself,  I  have  always  been 
very  grateful,  first  for  not  being  rich,  since 
wealth  is  a  condition  giving  not  merely  new 
temptations,  but  new  cares  and  responsibilities, 
such  as  a  student  should  not  be  called  upon 
to  undertake ;  and  secondly,  for  having  always 
had  the  health  and  habits  which  enabled  me  to 
earn  an  honest  living  by  literature,  and  this 
without  actual  drudgery.  Drudgery  in  litera 
ture  is  not  simply  to  work  hard,  which  is  a 
pleasure,  but  to  work  on  unattractive  material. 
If  one  escapes  drudgery,  it  seems  to  me  that 
he  has  in  literature  the  most  delightful  of  all 
pursuits,  but  especially  if  he  can  get  the  added 
variety  that  comes  from  having  the  immediate 
contact  with  life  which  occasional  public  speak- 


OUTSKIRTS   OF   PUBLIC   LIFE         359 

ing  gives.  The  writer  obtains  from  such  inter 
course  that  which  Selden,  in  his  "Table  Talk," 
attributes  to  the  habit  of  dining  in  public  as 
practiced  by  old  English  sovereigns :  "  The 
King  himself  used  to  eat  in  the  hall,  and  his 
lords  with  him,  and  then  he  understood  men." 
It  is,  after  all,  the  orator,  not  the  writer,  who 
meets  men  literally  face  to  face;  beyond  this 
their  functions  are  much  alike.  Of  course 
neither  of  them  can  expect  to  win  the  vast 
prizes  of  wealth  or  power  which  commerce 
sometimes  gives ;  and  one's  best  preparation  is 
to  have  looked  poverty  and  obscurity  in  the 
face  in  youth,  to  have  taken  its  measure  and 
accepted  it  as  a  possible  alternative,  —  a  thing 
insignificant  to  a  man  who  has,  or  even  thinks 
he  has,  a  higher  aim. 

No  single  sentence,  except  a  few  of  Emer 
son's,  ever  moved  me  so  much  in  youth  as  did 
a  passage  translated  in  Mrs.  Austen's  "Ger 
man  Prose  Writers "  from  Heinzelmann,  an 
author  of  whom  I  never  read  another  word  : 
"  Be  and  continue  poor,  young  man,  while 
others  around  you  grow  rich  by  fraud  and  dis 
loyalty  ;  be  without  place  or  power,  while  others 
beg  their  way  upward ;  bear  the  pain  of  dis 
appointed  hopes,  while  others  gain  the  accom 
plishment  of  theirs  by  flattery ;  forego  the  gra 
cious  pressure  of  the  hand,  for  which  others 


360  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS 

cringe  and  crawl ;  wrap  yourself  in  your  own 
virtue,  and  seek  a  friend,  and  your  daily  bread. 
If  you  have,  in  such  a  course,  grown  gray  with 
unblenched  honor,  bless  God,  and  die."  This 
should  be  learned  by  heart  by  every  young 
man;  but  he  should  also  temper  it  with  the 
fine  saying  of  Thoreau,  that  he  "  did  not  wish 
to  practice  self-denial  unless  it  was  quite  neces 
sary."  In  other  words,  a  man  should  not  be  an 
ascetic  for  the  sake  of  asceticism,  but  he  should 
cheerfully  accept  that  attitude  if  it  proves  to  be 
for  him  the  necessary  path  to  true  manhood. 
It  is  not  worth  while  that  he  should  live,  like 
Spinoza,  on  five  cents  a  day.  It  is  worth  while 
that  he  should  be  ready  to  do  this,  if  need 
ful,  rather  than  to  forego  his  appointed  work, 
as  Spinoza  certainly  did  not.  If  I  am  glad  of 
anything,  it  is  that  I  learned  in  time,  though 
not  without  some  early  stumblings,  to  adjust 
life  to  its  actual  conditions,  and  to  find  it  richly 
worth  living. 

After  all,  no  modern  writer  can  state  the 
relative  position  of  author  and  orator,  or  the 
ultimate  aims  of  each,  better  than  it  was  done 
eighteen  centuries  ago  in  that  fine  dialogue 
which  has  been  variously  attributed  to  Quin- 
tilian  and  Tacitus,  in  which  the  representatives 
of  the  two  vocations  compare  their  experience. 
Both  agree  that  the  satisfaction  of  exercising 


OUTSKIRTS   OF   PUBLIC   LIFE         361 

the  gift  and  of  knowing  its  usefulness  to  others 
provides  better  rewards  than  all  office,  all 
wealth.  Aper,  the  representative  orator,  says 
that  when  he  is  called  on  to  plead  for  the  op 
pressed  or  for  any  good  cause,  he  rises  above 
all  places  of  high  preferment,  and  can  afford  to 
look  down  on  them  all.  ("Turn  mihi  supra 
tribunatus  et  praeturas  et  consulatus  ascendere 
videor.")  Maternus,  who  has  retired  from  the 
public  forum  to  write  tragedies,  justifies  his 
course  on  the  ground  that  the  influence  of  the 
poet  is  far  more  lasting  than  that  of  the  orator; 
and  he  is  so  far  from  asking  wealth  as  a  reward 
that  he  hopes  to  leave  behind  him,  when  he 
shall  come  to  die,  only  so  much  of  worldly  pos 
sessions  as  may  provide  parting  gifts  for  a  few 
friends.  ("  Nee  plus  habeam  quam  quod  pos- 
sim  cui  velim  relinquere. ")  If  ancient  Rome 
furnished  this  lofty  standard,  cannot  modern 
Christendom  hope  at  least  to  match  it  ? 


EPILOGUE 

IN  reading  reminiscences  like  those  contained 
in  this  volume,  the  public  may  often  justly 
complain  that  too  much  has  been  told.  The 
writer,  on  the  other  hand,  when  he  comes  to 
review  what  he  has  written,  may  be  more  justly 
amazed  to  see  how  large  a  portion  of  what  is  to 
him  most  important  has  remained  unmentioned. 
Unless  he  has  by  nature  the  oppressive  com 
municativeness  of  a  French  or  Italian  autobio- 
grapher,  he  will  probably  have  left  unchroni- 
cled  the  most  intimate  and  essential  parts  of 
his  own  existence, — love,  friendship,  home,  so 
ciety,  health,  —  while  only  that  which  is  more 
overt  and  tangible  remains  in  view.  The  frank 
est  writer  doubtless  leaves  untold  more  of  the 
story  of  his  life  than  he  tells.  For  the  rest, 
his  career,  be  it  larger  or  smaller,  belongs  to 
his  own  time ;  and  its  record  is  chiefly  valuable 
for  the  light  it  throws  on  the  period  and  the 
place. 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  one  who  has 
habitually  occupied  the  attitude  of  a  reformer 
must  inevitably  have  some  satisfactions,  at  the 


EPILOGUE  363 

latter  end  of  life,  which  those  who  are  con 
servative  by  temperament  can  hardly  share. 
To  the  latter,  things  commonly  seem  to  be 
changing  for  the  worse,  and  this  habit  of  mind 
must  be  a  dreary  companion  as  the  years  ad 
vance.  The  reformer,  on  the  other  hand,  sees 
so  much  already  accomplished,  in  the  direction 
of  his  desires,  that  he  can  await  in  some  security 
the  fulfillment  of  the  rest.  Personally  I  should 
like  to  live  to  see  international  arbitration  se 
cured,  civil  service  reform  completed,  free  trade 
established ;  to  find  the  legal  and  educational 
rights  of  the  two  sexes  equalized ;  to  know  that 
all  cities  are  as  honestly  governed  as  that  in 
which  I  dwell ;  to  see  natural  monopolies  owned 
by  the  public,  not  in  private  hands ;  to  see 
drunkenness  extirpated  ;  to  live  under  absolute 
as  well  as  nominal  religious  freedom  ;  to  per 
ceive  American  literature  to  be  thoroughly 
emancipated  from  that  habit  of  colonial  defer 
ence  which  still  hampers  it.  Yet  it  is  some 
thing  to  believe  it  possible  that,  after  the 
progress  already  made  on  the  whole  in  these 
several  directions,  some  future  generation  may 
see  the  fulfillment  of  what  remains. 

To  those  who  were  living  when  the  American 
nation  lifted  and  threw  off  from  its  shoulders 
the  vast  incubus  of  human  slavery,  what  other 
task  can  seem  too  great  to  be  accomplished? 


364  CHEERFUL   YESTERDAYS 

In  the  presence  of  such  a  step  in  human  pro 
gress  as  this,  how  trivial  and  unimportant  are 
all  personal  ambitions  !  The  high-water  mark 
of  earthly  endeavor  is  not  to  be  found  in  the 
pure  love  of  science  or  art  or  literature,  since 
these  do  not,  at  their  utmost,  include  all  the 
interests  of  man ;  nor  in  the  wish  to  establish 
the  glory  of  God,  which  needs  no  establishing ; 
but  it  lies  in  aims  so  far-reaching  that  they 
exclude  all  petty  personalities  —  in  aims  such 
as  are  expressed  in  George  Eliot's  "  choir  invis 
ible,"  or  in  the  sublime  prayer  of  the  French 
iconoclast,  Proudhon,  "  Let  my  memory  perish, 
if  only  humanity  may  be  free." 


INDEX 


INDEX 


ABBOTT,  J.  G.,  128. 

Abolitionists,  the,  139. 

About,  Edmund,  313. 

Adam,  139,  180. 

Adams,  C.  F.,  21,  52,  53,  137. 

Adams,  Hannah,  6. 

Agassiz,  Alexander,  283. 

"  Albion,  The,"  189, 

Alcott,  A.  B.,  117,  147,  158, 169, 173, 
175,  iSV,  191. 

Alexander  the  Great,  126. 

Alford,  Henry,  101. 

Alger,  W.  R.,  105. 

Allston,  Washington,  45. 

American  Reforms,  largely  of  secu 
lar  origin,  1 16. 

Anderson,  Mary,  287. 

Andrew,  J.  A.,  106,  243,  246,  247. 
248. 

Andrews  and  Stoddard,  21. 

Andrews,  Jane,  129. 

Andromeda,  89. 

Aper,  a  Roman  orator,  361. 

Aristophanes,  301. 

Arnold,  Matthew,  272,  282,  283. 

Aspinwall,  Augustus,  125. 

Atchison,  D.  R.,  213. 

Athletic  exercises,  influence  of,  59. 

Atlantic  Circle  of  Authors,  the,  168, 
187. 

Atlantic  Club,  the,  172,  176. 

Austin,  Mrs.  Sarah,  359. 

Autobiography,  Obstacles  to,  i. 

Autolycus,  in  "Winter's  Tale," 
quoted,  64. 

Avis,  John,  234. 

Bachi,  Pietro,  17,  55. 
Bacon,  Sir  Francis,  58. 
Baker,  Lovell,  164. 
Baldwin,  J.  S.,  248. 
Bancroft,  Aaron,  15. 
Bancroft,  George,  189. 
Bancroft,  Mrs.  George,  282. 
Banks,  N.  P.,  237. 
Barnard,  Henry,  9. 
Banlett,  Robert,  167,  190. 


Bartol,  C.  A.,  175. 

Batchelder,  Mr.,  154,  155,  156,  157. 

Batchelder,  Mrs.  F.  L.,  4. 

Bearse,  Andrew,  144,  148,  165. 

Beatrice,  76. 

Beck,  Charles,  54. 

Bede,  Adam,  219. 

Beethoven,  Ludwig  von,  18,  95. 

Belot,  Adolphe,  313. 

Belton,  W.  S.,  138. 

Bern,  Joseph,  86. 

Bemis,  George,  175. 

Besant,  Sir  Walter,  273. 

Bewick,  John,  15. 

Bigelow,  Luther,  251. 

Billings,  Josh,  284. 

Bird,  F.  W.,  237. 

BIRTH    OF   A    LITERATURE,   THE, 

167-195. 

Bishop,  W.  H.,  312.  314. 
Blackstone,  Sir  William,  88. 
Blake,  Harrison,  181. 
Blanc,  Charles,  322. 
Blanc,  Louis,  304,  305,  309,  316,  317, 

318,  320,  321,  322. 
Boarding-schools,  Dangers  of,  22. 
Boccaccio,  Giovanni,  77. 
Borel,  General,  307. 
Boswell,  James,  15. 
Bowditch,  H.  I.,  176. 
Bowditch,  Nathaniel,  50. 
Bowen,  Francis,  53,  54. 
Boyesen,  H.  H.,  314. 
Bremer,  Fredrika,  101. 
Brentano,  Bettine,  25,  92,  93. 
Briges,  the  Misses,  119. 
Bright,  John,  327. 
Brook  JFarm,  83,  84,  120. 
Brookline,  Mass.,  summer  life   in, 

It. 

Brown,  Annie,  227. 
Brown,  Brownlee,  169. 
Brown,  C.  B.,  58. 
Brown,  John,  155,  196-234,  240,  242, 

243,  246,  327-  . 
Brown,  Mrs.  John,  227,  230. 
Brown,  Madox,  289. 


368 


INDEX 


Brown?  Theophilus,  181. 
Browning,  Robert,  66,  67,  202,  235, 

272,  286. 

Brownson,  Orestes,  97. 
Bryce,  James,  97. 
Bull,  Ole,  103. 
Burke,  Edmund,  109,  356. 
Burleigh,  C.  C.,  327. 
Burleigh,  Charles,  118. 
Burlingame,  Anson,  175. 
Burney,  Fanny,  15. 
Burns,  Anthony,  131,  157,  159,  162, 

165,  166. 

Burns,  Robert,  276. 
Butler,  B.  F.,  337,  342. 
Butman,  A.  O.,  162,  163,  164,  165. 
Byron,  George  Gordon,  Lord,  15,  23. 

Cabot,  Edward,  9. 

Cabot,  George,  10. 

Cabot,  J.  E.,  105. 

CAMBRIDGE  BOYHOOD,  A.,  1-37. 

Cambridge  Churchyard,  the,  32. 

Cameron,  Mr.,  295. 

Cameron,  Mrs.  J.  M.,  284,  295,  296. 

Campbell,  Thomas,  15. 

Canning,  George,  23. 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  77,  272,  278,  279, 

280,  285,  296,  304,  332. 
Carpenter,  Mr.,  233. 
Carter,  Charles  P.,  232. 
Carter  family,  the,  75. 
Gary,  Alice,  134. 
Gary,  Phoebe,  134. 
Cayley,  Mr.,  289. 
Channing,  Barbara,  83,  84. 
Channing,  E.  T.,  49,  52,  53,  57. 
Channing,  Ellery,  169,  174. 
Channing,  W.  F.,  159,  160,  176. 
Channing,  W.  H.,  43,  44,  97,  102, 

114,  120,  175,  327. 
Chapman,  George,  95. 
Chapman,  J.  J.,  190. 
Charles  River,  the,  96. 
Chaucer,  Geoffrey,  92. 
Cheney,  John,  176. 
CHILD  OF  THB  COLLEGE,  A,  38-68. 
Child,  F.J.,  52,  53,336. 
Child,  Mrs.  Lydia  Maria,  77,  102, 

126. 

Choules,  J.  O.,  175. 
Christ,  Jesus,  118. 
Church  of  the  Disciples,  the,  97. 
Cicero,  171. 
Cinderella,  253. 
CIVIL  WAR,  THE,  235-270. 
Clapp,  Henry,  85. 
Claretie,  Jules,  313. 
Clarke,  Edward,  62. 
Clarke,  J.  F.,  86,  97,  98,  244. 


Clarkson,  Thomas,  337. 

Clay,  Henry,  136. 

Clemens,  S.  L.  (Mark  Twain),  284. 

Cleveland,  Grover,  350,  351. 

Cobb,  Governor,  214. 

Cobden,  Richard,  327. 

Cockburn,  Lord  Chief  Justice,  281. 

Cogswell,  J.  G.,  189. 

Coleridge,  S.  T.,  102,  104,  272. 

Collins,  J.  A.,  85. 

Collins,  William,  15. 

"  Colombe's  Birthday  "  (Browning), 

202. 

Columbus,  Christopher,  308. 
Come-outers,  the,  114. 
Comte,  Auguste,  101. 
Confucius,  2. 
Constant,  Benjamin,  86. 
Conway,  M.  D.,  304,  309. 
Conway,  Mrs.  M.  D.,  304. 
Cooper,  J.  F.,  41,  170,  187. 
Copley,  J.  S.,  79. 
Courier,  P.  L.,  80. 
Cousin,  Victor,  86,  101. 
Craft,  Ellen,  328. 
Cranch,  C.  P.,  18. 
Crosby,  Alpheus,  130. 
Cudworth,  Ralph,  101. 
Curtin,  Governor,  246. 
Curtis,  Burrill,  78,  83,  85. 
Curtis,  G.  W.,  78,  83,  84,  98. 
Curtis,  Mary  (Story),  22. 
Cushing,  Caleb,  127. 
Cutter,  Calvin,  197. 
Cuvier,  Baron  G.  C.  L.  D.  de,  251, 
272. 

Dana,  C.  A.,  83,  84,  101. 

Dana,  R.  H.,  21,  53,  136,  137,  161. 

Dante  degli  Alighieri,  76,  101,  289. 

D'Arc,  Jeanne,  301,  309. 

D'Arlon,  29. 

Darmesteter,  Madame,  289. 

Darwin,  Charles,  194,  272,  283,  284, 

2$5t  286,  292,  296. 
Darwin,  Mrs.  Charles,  284. 
Davis,  C.  H.,  19. 
Davis,  Helen,  18. 
Davis,  Margaret,  37. 
Demosthenes,  298. 
De  Quincey,  Thomas,  102. 
Deschanel,  Emile,  301,  303. 
Devens,  Charles,  48,  74,  141,  247. 
Devens,  Mary,  74. 
De  Vere,  Aubrey,  272. 
"Dial,  The,"  1 14. 
Dicey,  Albert,  97. 
Dickens,  Charles,  187,  234. 
Discharged  convict,  reform  of,  191. 
Dix,  Dorothea  L.,  264. 


INDEX 


369 


Dobson,  Susanna,  15. 

Dombey,  Paul,  187. 

Douglas,  S.  A.,  230. 

Douglass,  Frederick,  137,  173,  327. 

Dowries,  Commodore,  142. 

Doy,  Doctor,  233. 

Drew.  Thomas,  156,  163. 

Du  Maurier,  George,  289. 

Durant,  H.  F.,  63,  88. 

Dwight,  John,  18. 

Edgewoith,  Maria,  15. 

"  Eleanore,''  Tennyson's,  296. 

Elizabeth,  Queen,  7. 

Ellis,  A.  ).,  284, 

Ellis,  C.  M.,  142. 

Emerson,  R.  W.,  23,  36,  53,  67,  69, 
77i  87,  91,  92,  95,  100,  in,  115, 
118,  168,  169,  170,  171,  173,  174, 
176,  180,  182,  185,  190,  204,  244, 
272,  279,  297,  327,  331,  332,  341, 
359. 

Emigrant  Aid  Society,  The,  196. 

Epictetus,  270. 

EPILOGUE,  362-364. 

Erckmann-Chatrian,  320. 

"  Estray,  The,"  102. 

Everett,  Edward,  12,  79,  189. 

Everett,  Mrs.  Edward,  12. 

Fallersleben,  Hoffmann  von,  101. 

Falstaff,  quoted,  174. 

Farlow,  W.  G.,  59. 

Farrar,  Mrs.  John,  90. 

Faust,  244. 

Fay,  Maria,  34,  74,  75. 

Fay,  S.  P.  P.,  75. 

Fayal,  Voyage  from,  196. 

Felton,  C.  C.,  53,  54. 

Fichte,  I.  G.,  102. 

Fields,  J.  T.,  176,  183,  184,  185,  186, 

187,  292. 

Fillmore,  Millard,  136. 
Finnegan,  General,  262. 
Fiske,  John,  58,  59. 
Fitzgerald,  Lord  Edward,  66. 
Fletcher,  Andrew,  of  Saltoun,  183. 
Follen,  Charles,  16. 
Forbes,  Hugh,  220,  221,  222. 
Foster,  Abby  Kelley,  146. 
Foster,  Dwight,  88. 
Foster,  S.  S.,  116,  146,  327. 
Fourier,  Charles,  101. 
Francis,  Convers,  100,  101. 
Franklin,  Benjamin,  16. 
Free  Church  of  Worcester,  146. 
Freeman,  Watson,  155. 
Freiligrath,  Ferdinand,  xoi. 
French,  J.  H.,  245. 
Frithiof's  Saga,  101. 


Frothingham,  O.  B.,  44,  105,  106, 

Froude,  T.  A.,  272,  277,  278,  279. 
rroude,  Mrs.  J.  A.,  277. 
FUGITIVE  SLAVE  EPOCH,  THE,  132- 

166. 

Fugitive  Slave  Law,  Passage  of,  135. 
Fuller,  Margaret,  12,  77,  91,  93* 

Gardner,  Joseph,  233. 
Garfield,  J.  A.,  349. 
Garibaldi,  Giuaeppe,  220. 
Garrison,  W.  L.,  97,  116,  125,  126, 

"7.  !3S.  >39»  242,  3*7- 
Gaspann,  Madame  de,  266. 
Geary,  J.  W.,  203,  205,  206. 
German     influence    on     American 

thought,  188. 
Gibbon,  Edward,  91,  358. 
Giles,  Henry,  175. 
Gillmore,  Q.  A.,  262. 
Goethe,  J.  F.  W.  von,  15,  43,  194, 

348. 

Goodell,  John,  251. 
Goodhue,  J.  M.,  247. 
Gosse,  Edmund,  289. 
Graeme,  Christie,  233. 
Grandison.  Sir  Charles,  15. 
Green,  J.  H.,  102. 
Greene,  W.  B.,  107,  175. 
Grenville,  Tom,  166. 
Grimes,  Mr.,  143. 
Giinderode,  Caroline  von,  92, 93. 

Habersham,  W.  N.,  18. 

Haggard,  Rider,  273. 

Hale,  E.  E.,  53,  175,  '93,  194- 

Hale  family,  the,  75. 

Hall,  A.  O.,  108. 

Hall,  Fitzedward,  53. 

Hamel,  M.,32i. 

Hanway,  James,  208. 

"  Harbinger,  The,"  101. 

Hardy,  Thomas,  273,  353. 

Harrington,  Mrs.,  86. 

Harris,  T.W.,  56. 

Harvard  University  in  1837,  44 ;  im 
provements  in  morals  and  man 
ners,  46 ;  elective  system  at,  57. 

Haven,  Franklin,  176. 

Hawkins,  N.,  217. 

Hawthorne,  Nathaniel,  12,  158,  168, 
170,  171,  176,  297,  315. 

Hay,  George,  55. 

Hay,  John,  219. 

Hayden,  Lewis,  140,  151,  155,  245. 

Hazlett,  Albert,  229,  231. 

Hazlitt,  William,  67. 

Hedge,  F.  H.,  «,  ,75. 

Heine,  Heinrich.,  80,  90,  120. 


370 


INDEX 


Heinzelmann,  359. 

"Heraud's  Monthly  Magazine," 
quoted,  167. 

Herttell,  Thomas,  116. 

Hesiod,  92. 

Higginson,  Barbara,  80. 

Higginson,  F.  J.,  123. 

inson,  Francis,  4,  114,  130. 
inson,  John,  123. 

Higginson,  Louisa  (Storrow),  8,  10, 
34,  1 60. 

Higginson,  Louisa  Susan,  101. 

Higginson,  Stephen,  senior,  4;  de 
scription  of,  by  W.  H.  Channing, 

Higginson,  Stephen,  junior,  4. 

Higginson,  T.  W.,  birth  and  home, 
3 ;  school  days,  19 ;  college  life, 
42  ;  residence  at  Brook  line,  81 ; 
favorite  reading,  92,  102;  love  of 
natural  history,  24,  194 ;  first  pub 
lications,  10 1,  102;  post-collegiate 
study,  90;  residence  at  Newbury- 
port,  112,  127;  interest  in  Wo 
man's  Rights,  120 ;  early  anti-sla 
very  influences,  126;  residence  at 
Worcester,  130, 146;  fugitive  slave 
events,  139;  speech  at  Tremont 
Temple,  142 ;  editorial  writing, 
145;  first  magazine  articles,  172; 
first  contribution  to  "  Atlantic 
Monthly,"  171 ;  perilous  versatil 
ity,  182  ;  "  Young  Folks'  History 
of  United  States,"  186;  love  of 
athletic  exercises,  194;  school 
committee  work,  193;  first  book, 
194;  trip  to  Fayal,  196;  visit  to 
Kansas,  197 ;  meeting  with  J.  H. 
Lane,  203  ;  intercourse  with  John 
Brown,  218;  visit  to  his  family, 
226 ;  attempt  to  rescue  his  confed 
erates,  231 ;  visit  to  a  slave  deal 
er's,  235 ;  action  during  civil  war, 
245;  enlistment,  248;  transfer  to 
South  Carolina,  252 ;  first  military 
expedition,  259 ;  "  Army  Life  in 
a  Black  Regiment,"  266;  "Har 
vard  Memorial  Biographies,"  270; 
"  Epictetus,"  270;  "  Malbone  " 
and  "  Oldport  Days,"  270;  resi 
dence  in  Newport,  270;  visits  to 
London,  271 ;  to  Paris,  298;  pub 
lic  speaking,  326;  public  office, 

HJeginson,  Waldo,  73. 
HiD,  Thomas,  53,  105,  175. 
Hillard,  G.  S.,  53,  175- 
Hinton,  R.  H.,  215,  231. 
Hoar,  E.  R.,  170,  175. 


Hoar,  G.  F.,  162. 
Hoffman,  Wickham,  62. 
Holmes,  Abiel,  13. 
Holmes,  John,  16,  39,  42. 
Holmes,  O.  W.,  4,  13,  24, 31,  32,  53, 

*39»  !54»  168,   I7*i  *76»  I77i  *78» 

179,  180,  182,  186. 
Homer,  92,  101. 
Hoole,  John,  15. 
Hopkins,  Louisa  (Stone),  129. 
Home,  R.  H.,  112. 
Horsford,  E.  N.,  27. 
Houghton,  Lord,  2,  289,  294,  297. 
Houghton,  Mr.,  34. 
Howard,  John,  5. 
Howe,  Julia  Ward,  311. 
Howe,  S.  G.,  142,  148,  150,  159,  176, 

215,  221,  246. 
Howland,  Joseph,  163. 
Hughes,  Thomas,  297. 
Hugo,  Victor,  298,  300, 301, 302, 303, 

311,  313,  321. 
Humboldt,  Baron    F.   H.  A.  von, 

272. 

Hunter,  David,  253,  256,  261,  262. 
Huntin,  A.,  225. 
Hurlbert  (originally  Hurlbut),   W. 

H.,  107,  109,  no,  in. 
Hutchinson,  Abby,  118,  119. 
Huxley,  T.  H.,  272,  285. 

Irving,  Washington,    12,   170,   187, 

278. 

Jackson,  C.  T.,  157. 
Jacksonville,  capture  of,  261. 

ames,  Henry,  senior,  175. 

ames,  Henry,  117. 

efferson,  Thomas,  5,  10. 

errold,  Blanchard,  312. 

ohnson,  Dr.  Samuel,  15. 

ohnson,  Rev.  Samuel,  105,  106. 

ones,  Mr.,  334. 

ones,  Mrs.,  334. 

ones,  Sammy,  334. 

onson,  Ben,  3. 

ouffroy,  T.  S.,  86. 

KANSAS  AND  JOHN   BROWN,  196- 

234. 

Kant,  Immanuel,  105. 
Keats,  John,  19,  67. 
Keene,  Charles,  290. 
Kelley,  Abby,  327. 
Kemp,  Mr.,  148,  151. 
Keppel,  Augustus,  166. 
King,  Edward,  312. 
King  family.the,  75. 
King,  Mrs.  Rufus,  17 


INDEX 


371 


Kingsley,  Charles,  107,  176. 
Kirkland,  I.  T.,6. 
Kraitsir,  Charles,  86,  93. 
Krummacher,  F.  A.,  in. 

Lamartine,  A.  M.  L.  de,  309,  310. 
Lamennais,  H.  F.  R.,  AbW  de,  92, 

93,  160. 

Lander,  F.  W.,  164. 
Lander,  Jean  M.,  Mrs.,  264,  265. 
Landor,  W.  S.,  24,  101.  112,  298. 
Lane,  G.  M.,  53. 
Lane,  J.  H.f  303,  204,  207,  208,  219, 

230. 

Lang,  Andrew,  273. 
Lamer,  Sidney,  230. 
Laplace,  Marquis  de,  50,  51. 
Larned,  Mr.,  83. 
Laura,  76. 

Lazarus,  Emma,  314. 
Le  Barnes,  J.  W.,  231,  232,  240. 
Lee,  Mrs.  Thomas,  87. 
Leighton,  Caroline  (Andrews),  129. 
Leland,  C.  G.,  312,  314. 
Leroux,  Pierre,  86. 
Lewes,  Mrs.  (George  Eliot),  219. 
Lincoln,  Abraham,  239,  261. 
Linnxus,  Charles  von,  89,  92. 
LITERARY  LONDON  TWENTY  YEARS 

AGO,  271-297. 
LITERARY  PARIS  TWENTY  YEARS 

AGO,  298-325. 
Literature  and    Oratory  compared, 

360. 
Locke,  John,  70. 

Lodge,  H.C.,  35*. 

Long,  J.  D.,  337,  354. 

Longfellow,  H.  W.,  12,  13,  33,  54, 
55,  67,  95,  101,  102,  103,  168,  171, 
176,  178,  179,  180,  189,  313,  314, 

Longfellow,  Samuel,  105. 

Lonng,  E.  G.,  141. 

Loring,  G.  B.,  176. 

L'Ouverture,  Toussaint,  270. 

Lovering,  Joseph,  53,  54. 

Lowell,  Charles,  103. 

Lowell,  J.  R.,  24,  28,  37,  42,  53,  55, 
67.  70,  75.  A  77,  93»  94.  95.  96, 
97,  103,  no,  118,  126,  128,  168, 
170,  171,  173,  174,  176,  178,  179, 
180,  182,  184,  186,  295. 

Lowell,  John.  5. 

Lowell,  Maria  (White),  67,  75,  76, 
77,  101. 

Lynch,  John,  235,  236. 

Lyttelton,  Lord,  289. 

Macaulay,  T.  B.,  170. 


Macbeth,  26$. 

Mackintosh,  Sir  James,  272. 

Magnolia,  Florida,  261. 

Ma  lot,  Hector,  313. 

Man  of  Ross,  The,  5. 

Mangual,  Pedro,  22. 

Mann,  Horace,  142. 

M. in. iii,  M.,  321. 

Marshall.  John,  15. 

Martin,  John.  210. 

Martineau,  Harriet,  126. 

Mary,  Queen,  35. 

Mason,  Charles,  54. 

Maternus.  a  Roman  poet,  361. 

Mather,  Cotton,  4. 

Mather,  Increase,  53. 

May,  S.  J.,  327-      ' 

May,  Samuel,  146,  147. 

Meikeljohn,  J.  M.  D.,  105. 

Melusina,  42. 

Mercutio,  in  "  Romeo  and  Juliet," 

quoted,  263. 

Mill,  J.  S.,  101,  121,  122. 
Millais,  J.  E.,  332. 
Miller,  Toaquin,  289. 
Mills,  Harriet,  19. 
Minot,  Francis,  62. 
Montaigne,  Michael  de,  181. 
Montgomery,  James,  143,  207,  208, 

215,  231,  232,  233,  234,  246. 
Moore,  Miles,  213,  214. 
Moore,  Thomas,  304. 
Morris,  William,  289. 
Morse,  Jedediah,  6. 
Morse,  Royal,  70. 
Motley,  J.  L.,  53,  74,  169. 
Mott.  Lucre  tia,  327. 
Mou  It  on,  Louise  Chandler,  289. 
Mucklewrath   Habakkuk,  219. 
Munroe,  G.  H.,  156. 
Music,  Influence  of,  on  a  child,  18. 

Nemesis  of  Public  Speaking,  The, 

Newton,  Mr.,  280. 
Newton,  Sir  Isaac,  92. 
Nicolay,  J.  G.,  219. 
Niebuhr,  B.  G.,  171. 
Nordau,  Max,  313. 
North,  Christopher,  169. 
Northumberland,  Duke  of,  282. 
Norton,  Andrews,  12. 
Norton,  C.  E.,  39,  53,  336. 

O'Brien,  Fitzjames,  42. 
O'Connor,  W.  D.,  163. 
Oken,  Lorenz,  194. 
ON    THE    OUTSKIRTS   or   PUBLIC 
LIKE,  326-361. 


372 


INDEX 


O'Shaughnessy,  Arthur,  289. 
Ossoli,  see  Fuller. 
Owen,  Richard,  194. 

Palfrey,  J.  G.,  12,  100,  103. 

Palmer,  Edward,  117. 

Papanti,  Lorenzo,  37. 

Parker,  F.  E.,  53,  62,  63,  64. 

Parker,  Theodore,  69,  97,  98,  100, 
in,  112,  113,  130,  144,  148,  150, 
iSS.  i59,  161,  168,  170,  175,  184, 

189,  217,  221,  327. 

Parkmau,  Francis,  169,  183. 
Parsons,  Charles,  13,  24,  40. 
Parsons,  Theophilus,  122. 
Parton,  James,  301. 
Paul,  Apostle,  217. 
Peabody,  A.  P.,  5,  53,  63. 
Peabody,  Elizabeth,  86,  87,  173. 
Peirce,  Benjamin,  17,  49,  50,  51,  52. 
Pericles,  112. 
PERIOD    OF  THB    NEWNESS,  THE, 

Perkins,  C.  C.,  20,  66,  124. 

Perkins,  H.  C.,  194. 

Perkins,  S.  G.,  80,  81,  124. 

Perkins,  S.  H.,  79,  So,  83,  84. 

Perkins,  T.  H.,  80. 

Perry,  Mrs.,  315. 

Peter,  Mrs.,  17. 

Petrarca,  Francisco,  76. 

Philip  of  Macedon,  126,  131. 

Phillips  &  Sampson,  176. 

Phillips,  W.  A.,  207. 

Phillips,  Wendell,  53,  97,  121,  145, 
148,  149,  150,  159,  240,  242,  243, 
244,  297,  327,  328,  329,  333,  357. 

Pickering,  Arthur,  85. 

Pierce,  A.  L.,  125. 

Pierce,  John,  45. 

Pike,  Mr.,  233? 

Pillsbury,  Parker,  327. 

Pinckney,  C.  C.,  13. 

Plato,  101,  158,  181. 

Plunkett,  Sergeant,  345. 

Plutarch,  15,  57,  171. 

Pollock,    Sir    Frederick,   280,  *8i, 

Pollock,  Lady,  280,  292. 
Pope,  Alexander,  i,  5. 
Pottawatomie    Massacre,  The,  ap 
proved  in  Kansas,  207. 
Poverty,  compensations  of,  359. 
Pratt,  Dexter,  12. 
Pratt,  Rowena,  12. 
Precocity,  perils  of,  68. 
Preston,  Colonel,  206. 
Prescott,  W.  H.,  82. 
Prohibitory  Laws,  120 


Proudhon,  P.  J.,  364. 
Provincialism,    advantages    of,    for 

children,  3. 

Putnam,  Mary  Lowell,  173. 
Puttenham,  George,  95. 
Pythagoras,  158. 


uincy,  Edmund,  178,  179,  244. 
uincy,  Josiah,  56,  71. 
uintilian,  360. 


Rabelais,  Francis,  181. 

Rainsford,  W.  S.,  98. 

Raynal,  W.  T.  F.,  15. 

Redpath,  James,  206,  226. 

Rees,  Abraham,  31. 

REFORMER,  THE  REARING   OF  A, 

100-131. 

Remond,  C.  L.,  174,  327. 
Retzsch,  Moritz,  79. 
Revere,  John,  54. 
Reynolds,  Sir  Joshua,  79. 
Ribera,  Jose\  295. 
Rice,  Mr.,  233. 
Rice,  W.  W.,  164. 
Richard,  King,  60. 
Richardson,  James,  106. 
Richter,  J.  P.,  87,  90. 
Rigual,  Magin,  22. 
Ripley,  George,  189. 
Ripley,  Mrs.  Sophia,  84. 
Ritchie,  Anne  Thackeray,  292. 
Ritter,  J.  W.,  92. 
Rivers,  Prince,  255. 
Rob  Roy,  36,  214. 
Robinson,  Charles,  206,  207,   208, 

209. 

Robinson,  Rowland,  115. 
Roelker,  Bernard,  55. 
Rogers,  Seth,  265. 
Rollins,  E.  W.,  60. 
Roosevelt,  Theodore,  345. 
Rosello.  Victoriano,  22. 
Rossetti,  William,  288. 
Rossetti,  Mrs.,  289. 
Rousseau,  J.  J.,  316,  317,  318,  320. 
Riickert,  Friedrich,  101. 
Rupert,  Prince,  203. 
Russell,  W.  E.,  353- 
Russell,  Thomas,  226. 
Russell,  William,  21. 
Russell,  Lord  William,  282. 
Rust,  J.  D.,  261,  262. 

Saladin,  60,  301. 
Sales,  Francis,  55. 
Saltoun,  Fletcher  of,  183. 
Sanborn,  F.  B.,  173,  215,  217,  218, 

221,  222,  224,  225. 


INDEX 


373 


Sand,  George,  77. 

Savage,  James,  224. 

Saxton,    Rufus,   248,  251,  252,  253, 

256.  257,  265. 
Scheliing,  F.  W.  J.,  ,02. 
Schnctzler,  August,  89. 
Scholar  in  politics,  the,  no  prejudice 

against,  336. 

Schramm,  Heir  von,  120. 
Schubert,  G.  H.  von,  86. 
Scott,  Sir  Walter,  16,  132,  133,  219, 

272,  276. 

Seamans,  Mr.,  233. 
Sedgwick,  Charles,  60. 
Selden,  John,  359. 
Sewall,  S.  E.,  175. 
Sewall,  Samuel,  122. 
Seward,  W.  H.,  238,  239- 
Shadrach   (a  slave),    135,   136,    137, 

'39,   M",   '42- 
Shairp,  Principal,  277. 
Shakespeare,  William,  64,  287,  294. 
Shaw,  k.  G.,256. 
Shimmin,  C.  F.,  60. 
Siddons,  Mrs.,  266. 
Sidney,  Sir  Philip,  258. 
Sims,   Thomas,   131,    142,  143,  144, 

146. 

Sismondi,  J.  C.  L.  S.  de,  92. 
"  Sisterhood  of  Reforms,"  the,  119. 
Sivret,  Mrs.,  251. 
Skimpole,  Harold,  117. 
Smalley,  G.  W.,  240,  312. 
Smith,  Gerrit,  218. 
Smith,  H.  W.,64. 
Smith,  T.  C.  H.,62. 
Social  feeling  in  Cambridge,  71. 
Somerville,  Mrs.,  17. 
Soule,  Silas,  233. 
Spanish  school-boys,  22. 
Sparks,  Jared,  16,  56,  58. 
Spencer,  Herbert,  272. 
Spenser,  Edmund,  n,  28. 
Spinoza,  Benedict,  360. 
Spofford,    Harriet    (Prescott),    129, 


130,  177.  '78,  179- 
prague,  A.  B.  R., 
pring,  L.  W.,  207. 


Sprague,  A.  H.  K.,  250. 

Spring,  " 

Spring,  Mrs.  Rebecca,  230. 

Spuller,  M.,  300. 

Stackpole,  J.  L. ,  74. 

Stallknecht,  F.  S.,  104. 

Stearns,   G.   L.,  215,  217,  218,  »2i, 

222. 

Steedman,  Charles,  261. 
Stevens,  A.  I).,  229,  231. 
Stevens,  C.  E.,  157,  158. 
Stewart,  Dugald,  n. 
Stillman,  Mrs.,  296. 


Storrow,  Ann  (Appleton),  7,  9. 

Storrow,  Anne  G.,  7. 

Storrow,  S.  E.,  74. 

Storrow,  Thomas,  7,  8. 

Story,  Joseph,  47. 

Story,  W.  W.;  77. 

Story,  William,  19,  22,  28. 

Story  family,  the,  75. 

Stowe,  C.  E.,  139,  178,  179,  180. 

Stowe,    Hamet   Beecher,    176,   177, 

178,  179,  180,  213. 
Stowell,  Martin,  147,  148,  149,  151, 

'53;  156,  »57»  191.  198,215- 
Straub,  Mr.,  209. 
Straub,  Miss,  209. 
Strauss,  D.  F.,  101. 
Stuart,  Gilbert,  280. 
Sullivan,  J.  L.,  263. 
Sunnier,  Charles,  53,  125,  146,  175, 

196,  267. 

Suttle,  C.  F.,  148. 
Swift,  J.  L.,  151. 
Swinburne,  A.  C.,  289. 
Swiveller,  Dick,  30. 

Tacitus,  C.  C.,  360. 
Tadema,  Alma,  289. 
Talandier,  M.,  304,  305,  306,  309, 

310. 

Taney,  R.  B.,  238. 
Tappan,  S.  F.,  204,  215. 
Taylor,  Bayard,  108,  293. 
Taylor,  Henry,  29. 
Taylor,  Tom,  312. 
Tennyson,  Alfred,  67,  272,  287,  291, 

292,  294,  295,  296,  314. 
Thackeray,  W.  M.,  187,  313. 
Thaxter,  Celia,  67. 
Thaxter,  L.  L.,  66,  67,  76,  94. 
Thaxter,  Roland,  67. 
Thaxter  family,  the,  75. 
Thayer  and  Eldridge,  230. 
The"rese,  Madame,  320. 
Thomas,  C.  G.,  91. 
Thompson,  Henry,  198. 
Thoreati,  Miss,  170, 
Thoreau,  H.  D.,  25,  53,  78,  91,  92, 

114,  169,  170,  181,  279,  360. 
Ticknor,  George,  12,  15,  49,  189. 
Ticknor,  W.  D.,  176. 
Ticknor  &  Fields,  183. 
Tidd,  C.  P.,  228,  229. 
Todd,  Francis,  127. 
Tolstoi,  Count  Leo,  315. 
Torrey,  H.  W.,  53,58. 
Tourgue'neff  (or  Turge"nev),   I.   S., 

3i3,  314- 

Town  and  Country  Club,  the,  172. 
Transcendentalism,  69. 


374 


INDEX 


Transcendentalists,  the,  114. 
Trenck,  Baron,  23. 
Trollope,  Anthony,  287. 
Trowbridge,  C.  T.,  262. 
Tubman,  Harriet,  328. 
Tuckerman,  Edward,  104. 
Tuckerman  family,  the,  75. 
Tukey,  Marshal,  161. 
Turpin,  Richard,  161. 
Tyndall,  John,  272,  289. 

Underwood,  F.  H.,  176,  178,  182. 
Ursuline  Convent,  Burning  of  the, 

Usher,  R.  G.,  158. 

Valentine,  in  "Two  Gentlemen  of 

Verona,"  quoted,  271. 
Vanderbilt,  Commodore,  175. 
Van  der  Velde,  Willem,  79. 
Van  Tromp,  Admiral,  103. 
Venable,  Mr.,  280. 
Very,  Jones,  54. 
Village  Blacksmith,  the,  12. 
Virgil,  337. 

Vigilance  Committee,  the,  139,  145. 
Voltaire,  F.  M.  A.  de,  298,  300,  301, 

302,303,317,  321. 

Walker,  Captain,  206. 
Walker,  F.  A.,  26. 
Walker,  James,  56,  no. 
Walpole,  Horace,  280. 
Ward,  G.  C.,  176. 
Ward,  S.  G.,  176,  246. 
Ware,  George,  25. 
Ware,  Henry,  138. 
Ware,  Thornton,  29. 
Ware  family,  the,  ido. 
Washington,  George,  16. 
Wasson,  D.  A.,  112,  169. 
Watkins,  W.  I.,  217.      ' 
Watson,  Marston,  78. 
Webb,  Seth,  157. 
Webster,  Daniel,  82,  136,  297. 


Webster,  J.  W.,  27. 

Weiss,  John,  103,  169. 

Weld,  S.  M.,  78. 

Weller,  Sam,  334. 

Wells,  W.  H.,  129. 

Wells,  William,  19,  20,21. 

Wendell,  Barrett,  52. 

Wentworth,  Amy,  8. 

Weyman,  Stanley,  29. 

Whewell,  William,  92,  101. 

Whipple,  E.  P.,  170,  176. 

White,  A.  D.,  312. 

White,  Blanco,  183. 

White,  William,  126. 

White  fugitive  slaves,  146. 

Whitman,  Walt,  230,  231,  289. 

Whittier,  J.  G.,  8,  m,  128,  132,  133, 

'34»  i35.  168,  171,  178,  179,  180, 

'85,  237. 

Whittier,  Elizabeth,  133,  134. 
Wightman,  Mayor,  244. 
Wilberforce,  William,  327. 
Wilder,  S.  V.  S.,  10. 
Willis,  Mr.,  233. 
Willis,  N.  P.,  95,  271. 
Wilson,  Billy,  231. 
Wimpffen,  General,  324. 
Wines,  E.  C.,  310. 
Winkelried,  Arnold,  154. 
Winnemucca,  Sarah,  87. 
Winthrop,  R.  C.,  53. 
Winthrop,  Theodore,  107. 
Wise,  H.  A.,  224,  225. 
Woman's  Rights  Movement,  120. 
Woman  Suffrage,  121. 
Woodward,  Rufus,  62. 
Wordsworth,  William,  69,  194,  272, 

294,  338. 

Wright,  H.C.,  113. 
Wyman,  J   C.,  176,  178. 

Xanthus,  112. 

Zaccone,  M.,  313. 

Zamacois,  Eduardo,  295. 


O.  Houghton  &  Co. 
CmmtH^.ifa^U.S.A. 


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